10 Kansas State Horticultural -Society. 



cold-blooded insects and do not give off heat, they maintain the proper tem- 

 perature by consuming honey and by muscular exertions. Both of these 

 processes consume energy and shorten the life of the bees. 



Winter protection reduces the work necessary to maintain the proper tem- 

 perature, and therefore will result in a larger colony of bees in the spring, 

 which will possess a much more unexpended energy to carry on the spring 

 work of brood rearing, that there may be a large working force ready for 

 the nectar flow when it starts. 



In order to ascertain whether or not winter protection is valuable, experi- 

 ments have been carried on at the Kansas State Agricultural College in which 

 two sets of three hives each are used. One set of these hives is placed out in 

 the open where it is not protected by any windbreak, while the other set is 

 protected by a dense windbreak of shrubbery. In each set of the three h'ves, 

 each hive is wintered under different conditions. There is one one-story hive, 

 one two-story hive, and one packed hive in each set. All of these hives are 

 placed on scales and daily readings are taken of the change in weights. In 

 the fall of the year when the bees are placed in winter quarters the amount 

 of honey in each hive is ascertained, also the exact weight of the bees in each 

 hive. As the number of bees in a pound is variously estimated at about 5,000, 

 for the purpose of this experiment this will be the number used. As the 

 number of bees in the hive ready for work on the day that the nectar flow 

 starts is a good test of how they have wintered, the weight of the bees is 

 again taken in the spring of the year on the date when the nectar flow begins. 

 As a result of these weighings it was found that the one-story hive which 

 was unprotected had in the spring 11,718 bees, while the two-story hive, under 

 similar conditions, had 16,406, and the packed hive had 36,718, or 25,000 

 more bees than were in the one-story hive. As bees are now selling for $2.50 

 a pound, this would make a difference of $12.50 between the packed hive and 

 the unpacked hive. The same was' found to be true in those bees which were 

 protected by a windbreak. The one-story hive had 14,063 bees, while the 

 two-story hive had 20,936 and the packed hive had 36,594. A comparison of 

 the number of bees in the hives protected by the windbreak and those not 

 protected shows a difference of about 2,500 bees in the one-story hive and 

 ' over 4,000 in the two-story hive, which gives a very good indication of the 

 value of a windbreak over no windbreak. In the packed hive the value of 

 the windbreak is not as striking as that in the unpacked hive, which was 

 reasonably to be expected. A theory which has long been held and frequently 

 preached in Kansas is that there is no need of winter protection in this state, 

 because we have open winters. The winter of 1917-'18 was called a severe 

 winter, while that of 1918-'19 was known as an open winter. The following 

 facts will show very clearly that this theory of not needing packing on 

 account of an open winter is a myth and a dangerous one at that, as the 

 open winter is much more severe on bees than a severe winter. A comparison 

 between the number of bees in the hives in the spring with the number in 

 the fall shows that in 1917-'18, which was a severe winter, there were 332 less 

 bees m the one-story hive which was not protected by the windbreak while 

 in the hive similarly placed during the open winter of 1918-19 there were 

 3,282 or about ten times as many. In 1917--18 the two-story hive without a 

 windbreak gained 2,806 bees, while in the open winter there were 469 less bees 



