1874. 
GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 
5 
keeper could as well afford to sell 50 colonics 
at $12.00 each as to furnish a single one at 
$18.00, taking into account trouble of prepar- 
ing them for shipping etc., etc. 
Just as we are finishing, friend Patterson, of 
Freestone, writes to know how many combs a 
colony should cover in Oct., for instance, to 
enable them to winter. Now to give a careful 
guess at it we would say that if you do not see 
bees clustered in at least three, spaces during a 
cool day, you had better not undertake to win- 
ter them. If they can be seen in four spaces, 
call them fair; five spaces good, six spaces fine, 
and seven, “tip top.” More bees than the latter 
we should not consider desirable for one queen. 
FROBLEm ,\0. 10. 
- V f'/IIAT are the necessary conditions to iu- 
yj'sJI sure healthy brood-raising in winter, 
should it be desirable? It is pretty generally 
agreed we believe that full colonies winter much 
safer than Nuclei and many times we have col- 
onies that have been weakened by different 
causes in the fall to such an extent that the at- 
tempt to winter is unsafe to say the least, and 
yet they have valuable queens. Now where 
we have many such it would well repay the ex- 
pense of a room artificially warmed and all 
cost of food could we thereby get them up into 
good trim to stand it until spring opens. 
There seems to be adifllculty in the matter of 
brood rearing during confinement to the hives, 
but little understood. Our experiments given 
ou another page as yet (Dec. 12,) have produced 
nothing very encouraging. To be able to 
build up a colony at pleasureduringany month 
in the year (as we do in June for instance) and 
thus have a full Apiary of extra strength inde- 
pendently of the weather whenever we choose to 
invest the necessary amount to acomplish it, 
Novice estimates, would be an acquisition cal- 
culated to give Bee-keoping a great start, and 
that the desired information would be worth 
$100 at least to us alone. We cannot raise 
good queens in winter ’tis true (or at least we 
suppose it is) but if it is really true Florists 
and Market Gardeners have become able to 
rear almost everything in the vegetable king- 
dom at pleasure regardless of season, why can- 
not we rear bees in stocks where we have good 
queens? P. G. fears ’tis almost an impossibility, 
but Novice remarks “we have ultimately suc- 
ceeded with so many difficult points during the 
past season, why may not careful study and 
experiment vouchsafe us a similar reward in 
this; and may not such research at the same 
time unvail the mystery of the Bee disease?” 
Who among our readers will help? We shall be 
very glad of reports. 
Mr. Quinby's excellent article in the Agri- 
culturist for Dec. on wintering bees, contains 
the following : 
“That syrup of sugar does not prevent It in such 
weather was proved ill many cases the past winter 
whore tile combs were tilled with it. ami nothing else, 
and were badly soiled before the bees failed.” 
Now in the great number of reports we have 
received, no such have ever come to hand 
where the bees were fed in time to seal their 
stores. Thin, unsealed syrup has in some 
eases seemed to be unwholesome, yet not like 
honey after all. We really hope Mr. Q.’s sug- 
gestion of keeping the bees in a room warmed 
artificially to a temperature of 50<> or there- 
abouts, may be practically a success, as bees 
never suffer thus in warm weather. 
Could they be allowed to fly out there would 
be no trouble, but we fear it would not do to 
fasten them in at that temperature, more es- 
pecially toward spring. Darkness will not keep 
them in at such times, for we have had them 
buzzing about our ears when the room was 
dark as “ink in a stone bottle,” and the worst 
trouble with dysentery we ever had was in the 
winter of 1808, when February was almost as 
warm as April. The bees were in a cellar and 
had natural stores. We could not keep the 
cellar cool even by opening the doors and win- 
dows nights. As Mr. Q. says, a good strong, 
henlthy colony of bees seem to be almost obliv- 
ious of any degree of cold, yet after they get 
thinned down or weakened by disease, cold 
seems to operate disastrously, and a room 
warmed artificially for such, we think might 
save them. We have one just such, now near 
us; the bees seem bright and healthy, but the 
queen looks very small and thin, and we find 
no eggs in the combs. We have (to-day, Dec. 
1,) just inserted a comb containing pollen, to 
see whether it will start brood-rearing. 
Dec. 4th . — We find the queen has deposited 
eggs quite plentifully, although the pollen giv- 
en them did not fill more than 2 doz. cells. 
Dec. 9th . — Found eggs in combs as before, 
but nothing more. Placed the pollen next the 
eggs and improvised a wire house for them to 
fly in, which they did, but few of them got 
back to the hive without help. 
Dec. 10 th . — Gave them flying room in an up- 
per story with wire cloth on top; with one 
corner of the quilt turned up they got back to 
the cluster without trouble. Kept the temper- 
ature to-day 10'* or more higher by placing the 
hive over a stream of air warmed up to about 
70». 
Dec. \Hth — No eggs, but the bees look quite 
healthy, and have died very little since last ex- 
amination. Pollen remains in the comb, all, 
or nearly all of it. 
We entirely agree with the Agriculturist's 
view of selling receipts. Of those offered for 
sale at prices ranging from 25c. to $10, or more, 
we have never found one yet so offered of any 
value, and the same thing is almost invariably 
found more intelligently given, free in our Re- 
ceipt Books or through our Scientific Journals. 
Snoui.D the bees get uneasy during warm 
spells of weather in winter, the doors or win- 
dows of the Bee House or cellar should be open- 
ed during the night. If they are confined to the 
hives by wire cloth this is all the more import- 
ant, After they have been once quieted down 
and induced to go back on the combs the temper- 
ature may usually be allowed to come up to 40 
or even 50 degrees without again making them 
uneasy. 
