PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 13 



CHAPTER V 

 Bee Keeping for the Far North. 



We have all across our northern border, and stretching 

 far away into the British possessions, a vast domain. This 

 territory is well protected with snow and so all plants, wild 

 and cultivated, thrive and blossom well, but the winter is 

 long and the cold quite continuous. But if bees could be 

 brought through the long winter safely, they are liable to 

 store honey abundantly during the short summers, as the 

 days are long and the bloom quite profuse; but in the low, 

 flat hives that have been used, there is not sufficient room 

 to hold plenty of stores to last through these long winters 

 and throu.e-h the spring until the spring blossoms come. And 

 it is here that our big double hives will fill a very important 

 place, and by having this large store of honey it will carry 

 the bees through any winter that comes, safely, and thus 

 will make it possible for the people living much farther 

 north to keep bees and get a honey supply, because the 

 abundant snow protects the clovers and other honey plants, 

 so that they yield plenty of honey if the bees can be kept 

 safely. 



Therefore since the bees can be kept and handled in 

 these large hives as described by this method, and kept in 

 fairly warm shelters, built with lumber and roofing paper and 

 so arranged, they can always avail themselves of a flight 

 whenever the weather is suitable, as late in the fall and as 

 early in the spring, by having their entrances kept well open 

 at all times,' winter and summer, for good ventilation. A 

 great deal of damage comes to bees from their entrances 

 becoming clogged with dead bees and cappings on the inside, 

 pnd snow and ice or other causes on the outside, which causes 

 the bees to become damp. More bees are lost in this manner 

 than in any other way. If bees can be kept dry, there is very 

 little danger from cold of any reasonable degree. We almost 

 forgot that our forefathers kept their bees successfully for 

 years in single-walled box hives, and we have seen so many 

 examples where bees have withstood low temperatures, that 

 I feel sure many bee keepers are unduly alarmed about their 

 bees suffering from the cold. An extensive bee keeper here 

 told me he bought five colonies of bees that passed through 

 that worst winter of the seventies in long box hives set up 

 on the edges of two wide boards and no bottoms on the hives, 

 and they came through in fine shape and did better than any 

 he had the next season. If cold could have killed bees, 

 surely these should have been dead. And I saw a light after- 

 swarm go through a winter in a double ten frame hive, one 



