WINTERING BEES IN FOUR-HIVE BOXES 
MORLEY PETTIT 
PURPOSE OF COo- OPERATIVE EXPERIMENTS. 
There is nothing on the farm which requires so little 
care in proportion to the returns as the bees. This i is why 
they are so often kept at a loss; because the care they need 
is so small that it is utterly neglected. They, require. only 
a little attention, but what they do require they must have. 
It is to call attention to this work, and to help fit it-into__ 
its proper place among the~other farm duties, that these’ 
co-operative experiments are undertaken. They are called 
“experiments,” but the methods of management described’ 
have already been proven a success. 
It is farthest from the purpose of this work: to induce 
people to start beekeeping without carefully counting the 
cost. There are already at least ten thousand beekeépers 
in Ontario. What is needed is not more beekeepers, but 
better beekeeping. Besides giving bees their proper place 
on the farms where they already exist, it is hoped that the 
- specialist will be helped to organize his work so as to enable 
him to keep more bees and also get better average returns. - 
HOW TO CONDUCT EXPERIMENT No. 10. 
First read carefully the directions given in the following 
pages. Then go to the apairy and select the experimental 
group of eight hives following directions carefully. Colonies 
having old or failing queens may ‘be requeened by purchase 
of queens almost any time up till November first. Weak 
colonies occupying less than five to six Langstroth combs in 
September, should be united by setting one over the other 
with-a newspaper between, then sorting the combs down to 
one broodchamber in four or five days. Moving hives for 
grouping or uniting should. be done gradually one or two 
feet at a time, with at least one day when bees fly freely 
between moves. Supers should all be removed before the 
middle of September. Queen excluders are taken off at the 
same time and the top bars scraped free of propolis and burr- 
combs with a hive tool, hoe or some such tool. Bees may 
be packed at any time after the supers are off; but feeding 
for winter should be delayed until the first week i in October. 
After choosing the experimental group, and preparing it 
as far as possible, queens should be ordered, if necessary, 
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