89o 
December 17 , 
THE RURAL NEW-YORKER. 
perience ran across at least a dozen remedies which 
thorough trial by competent parties seem to have demon¬ 
strated to be effective. I knew a man once who pro¬ 
tected a large orchard in a part of the country where 
rabbits were very numerous by simply taking care to 
have more or less green fodder scattered on top of the 
ground wherever the snow had covered all other green 
things. Rabbits seem to be very sensitive to the pres¬ 
ence of certain substances; and speaking from personal 
tests, I will say that it appears that rabbits will not 
bother any tree that has been rubbed with a piece of 
old meat or any such substance, so that the tree would 
get the odor and probably more or less of the decay¬ 
ing matter itself on the bark. Such protection, how¬ 
ever, would last but a short time, as a good rain will 
usually clean the trees off to such an extent that the 
rabbits do not hesitate to gnaw the bark again. I have 
known of one or two cases of white lead being used 
as a protection against rabbits, but it does not seem to 
be wholly satisfactory, and I question myself if it has 
any effect at all. I found out some years ago, from 
the experience of a personal friend, that in the case 
of a cow, far from being repelled by the smell of white 
lead, she seemed to be attracted by it, and in the case 
which I refer to the cow ate iOr drank a pail of the 
prepared paint with fatal results, and I suspect that 
there is nothing in the pure paint which would repel in 
any way either rabbits or sheep. I have never seen the 
paint used with lime or sulphur. 
Some seasons rabbits bother scarcely any, and it is 
the same way with borers. It is consequently impossi¬ 
ble to say whether a case of immunity is wholly due 
to remedies tried, or whether the trees would not have 
been bothered anyway. Of course this does not apply 
to actual tests where particular trees in an orchard are 
treated and the remainder untreated, but such experi¬ 
ments are rare in commercial practice. If sheep are 
always kept well fed they will not bother the trees; 
but if one pastures his orchard so closely that the sheep 
get hungry for more green substances they will start 
to stripping the bark. I know of a case where a man 
kept sheep in an orchard for two years, and decided 
that his kind of sheep did not eat trees; but one week 
in early Spring, when, owing to a pressure of other 
farm work he had rather neglected the sheep, and had 
not fed them properly, they started to gnawing the 
bark, and killed over half the trees in a single week. 
Geneva Exp. Station. n. o. booth. 
OUTSIDE WINTERING OF BEES. 
WINTER MORTALITY.—Perhaps the most season¬ 
able topic at the present time is that of outside winter¬ 
ing. When at the New York State Bee-Keepers’ Con¬ 
vention, held at Syracuse last Winter, I was told that 
already (February) half the bees in the State had 
perished, and I understand that before Spring the per¬ 
centage was even larger. In Canada 70 per cent per¬ 
ished. Why this loss? In part through not knowing 
what to do, and partly through neglect and careless¬ 
ness, this latter in a measure due to a scries of favor¬ 
able preceding Winters, during which time bees in 
almost any shape wintered. In wintering bees I find 
that if the atmosphere in the hive is kept dry, if the 
bees have fresh air and plenty of stores, the cold alone 
rarely if ever kills them, although it is a necessity to pro¬ 
tect them against cold if the most economical and suc¬ 
cessful wintering is desired. It is moisture and cold 
combined that destroys bees. 
HOW THE BEES CLUSTER.—Bees in Winter 
quarters cluster in the shape of a ball on and in the 
combs very quietly; the lower the temperature the more 
compactly they cluster. They expand and contract ac¬ 
cording to the temperature just as readily as a ball of 
mercury. When clustering upon regularly hanging combs, 
the outside combs have in and upon them the least 
number <of bees. When sudden contraction takes place 
these outside bees become detached. They cannot fol¬ 
low the inner bees unless they pass around the outer 
edges of the comb. Becoming isolated, they perish. 
In the old box hive, where bees were left to build comb 
in whatever position they saw fit, the irregular building, 
the openings left by the bees, allowed expansion and 
contraction of the cluster without one portion of the 
cluster ever breaking away from the other. For those 
who winter outside it would pay to have a hole in the 
side of the hive which could be plugged when not in 
use, and through this in the Fall, by means of a borer 
or long blade, a hole be cut gently through the center 
of every comb. A hole a half inch in diameter would be 
ample, and give a Winter passageway. A bee isolated 
stiffens, chills and perishes in a short time. 
FEEDING HABITS.—In the hive, and within reach 
of the cluster must be stores, food for the bees. There 
are two kinds of food in the hive; pollen, the nitro¬ 
genous muscle-producer, and honey, the carbonaceous 
or heat and energy producer. Bees in their Winter, 
semi-hibernating condition use their muscles but little, 
and therefore require little if any nitrogenous food. 
But they have to keep up the heat of the cluster, and 
to do this they consume honey. This produces heat, 
which they need. Carbonic acid gas and water in the 
form of vapor is given off, which they do not want, and 
which must pass from the hive. In successful winter¬ 
ing we require a cluster of bees with a queen. In a 
climate where the temperature falls from freezing point 
to 15 and 20 degrees below zero the cluster must be 
sufficiently large to generate without difficulty sufficient 
heat to resist the cold, which seeks to penetrate every¬ 
thing and everywhere. Next, every hive should be 
weighed and if short of 30 pounds of Winter stores be 
fed; granulated sugar syrup made of two pounds gran- 
FARM TOWER IN MAINE. Fig. 41G. 
ulated sugar and one pound of water makes excellent 
Winter stores. Do the bees require that much food 
during the Winter? The colder the weather the more 
heat they must generate, and the more stores required; 
but even then they are not likely to require this quan¬ 
tity. They will require what is left in the Spring, and 
what is of even greater importance is that in the pro¬ 
longed cold weather the compact cluster, perhaps half 
numb on the outside, cannot, does not, break cluster. 
They may consume the food in their midst or follow up 
slowly what is touching the cluster. With scanty stores 
this food is scattered, and none may be within reach, 
and the bees starve. 
OUTSIDE PROTECTION.—Now comes the ques¬ 
tion of outside protection. We must in a measure be 
guided by the lowest temperature we may expect. 
Where bees do not have frequent flights ’in Winter the 
hives are better put in outside cases, which will allow 
sufficient packing to protect them against cold, say, four 
to six inches of dry forest leaves at the bottom, eight 
inches of the same at the side and back and front, leav¬ 
ing at the front where the entrance is an opening 
through which the bees can pass in and out. This 
packing is to act as a non-conductor, therefore should 
not be packed too loosely and not too firmly. I prefer 
forest leaves, with the exception of wool. Sawdust is 
too compact, chaff attracts mice. As to top packing, 
it serves two purposes; it protects against cold and en¬ 
ables the foul air to pass through it and out of the hive. 
I am well aware that the apicultural camp is somewhat 
divided upon this question. There are those who say 
that the fresh air should oome in at what is known as 
THE BOTTLE LAMB. Fig. 417. 
the entrance, and that the foul air should pass off at 
the same opening. The principles which come into 
play in a hive of bees consuming stores to generate 
beat and a stove burning wood or coal for the same 
purpose is in a measure identical. The air passes in at 
the damper or entrance, passes over the fire or cluster, 
becomes oxidized and laden with other material and 
passes off. 
DANGERS bROM MOIS r I URE.—In the common 
entrance and outlet we have what is known in science 
as a friction of air currents, the bees wasting energy 
in expelling it, as they do in forcing the warmed at¬ 
mosphere down. Another objection is that more or 
less of the exhausted, impure air must be drawn back 
into the hive by what is known as diffusion of gases. 
But what makes this advice so dangerous in colder 
climates is that as the moisture-laden air returns to 
the colder part of the hive, it condenses and freezes; 
the colder the outside air the farther in from the en¬ 
trance it will condense and freeze. Such conditions 
were common last Winter, and the cold and damp at¬ 
mosphere with the frozen entrance destroyed the bees. 
\\ here the moisture leaves through the top of the pack¬ 
ing the hive is warm at the point of exit; condensation 
does not take place until the moisture reaches the top 
of the packing, or until it strikes the under side of the 
outside case cover. Here, by allowing moderate ventila¬ 
tion between the packing and outside cover, the mois¬ 
ture will be expelled when the sun shines on the out¬ 
side cover and the air passes through. The sealed quilt 
or honey board should be loosened on the hive to allow 
the moisture to pass up and out. Where there are no 
holes through the combs it is well to put pieces of wood 
across the top of the combs or frames to raise the 
quilt sufficiently to allow the bees to pass over from 
comb to comb; 10 to 12 inches of loose packing at the 
top of the hive, with a space of, say, two inches be¬ 
tween the top of the packing and the underside of the 
packing case cover. These instructions followed will 
prevent heavy Winter losses. r. f. holtermann. 
Canada. 
PERMANENT WIRE FENCES. 
I have one farm of 400 acres and one of 240, and 
from now on it is my intention to build fences as though 
they were permanent improvements; hence my great 
interest in wire fences. I visited the Illinois State Fair 
chiefly for the purpose of examining the fences on ex¬ 
hibition. I have also sent for the printed matter of 
many firms, but so far have not found one that claims 
or so much as mentions an iron wire fence. There 
is, however, a general feeling among manufacturers that 
the average fences have not hitherto been satisfactory. 
But they seem all to be striving after improvement 
along the line of substituting what they call open-hearth, 
high-carbon spring steel for the usual Bessemer steel. 
Will it resist rust better than the Bessemer? That is 
what I don’t know, and that is a point worth the while 
of our experiment stations. It is undoubtedly very 
much stronger. I have sent for small rolls of differ¬ 
ent kinds of fence just to test the different makes. So 
far I think the-fence is much the best of any 
I have tried. But a defect in it is that the stay wires 
are not the hard steel wire at all, and bend as readily 
as the wire in any other make. Of course all these hard 
steel wire fences are supposed to have a coil in the 
horizontal wires which gives and takes the slack with 
the varying temperature. This seems to be an important 
point. Will a fence of iron wire do this? 
Illinois. A. W. FOREMAN. 
ALFALFA ON LONG ISLAND. 
Many readers of The R. N.-Y. are interested in ex¬ 
periments in the cultivation of Alfalfa in this State. 
I have had a little experience with it in an experi¬ 
mental way, which may be of interest to some of your 
readers. Several years ago I planted a small plot, about 
eight square rods, in my garden. It did quite well, 
but weeds of various kinds came up with the Alfalfa 
and partly occupied the ground. In spite of weeds I 
secured six cuttings in two seasons. In the Spring of 
1903 I planted, .for one of my neighbors, 12 acres of 
oats, with a mixture of Alfalfa, clover and Timothy 
seed. this was not according to my judgment the 
best way to raise Alfalfa, and this Summer the mowing 
was delayed until late in July, which was a sad mistake. 
Still, the crop was very large, averaging nearly four 
large team loads to the acre. This year I have made 
another little experiment with Alfalfa under the direc¬ 
tion of Prof. Stone, of Cornell University. On May 20 
I sowed one-tenth acre with Alfalfa. The land had been 
in Timothy meadow for several years, and is a sandy 
loam. I applied one barrel of lime and 100 pounds of 
fertilizer on the plot. Prof. Stone sent me the seed. 
On about seven-eighths of the plot I used inoculated 
seed. On the remainder the seed was not inoculated. 
'1 he seed germinated and came up nicely, and made 
a rapid growth from the first. About the middle of 
August I mowed the plot by hand, being careful not to 
mow very close to the ground. The crop was left 
on the ground to form a mulch, but was estimated to be 
equal to the rate of one ton per acre. At that time 
there was no appreciable difference in the growth of 
the Alfalfa from inoculated seed and from seed not in¬ 
oculated. For two weeks after mowing the Alfalfa 
made but little growth, but later it brightened up, and at 
the time of the first severe frost it had made another 
crop nearly equal to the first. At the end of the sea¬ 
son there was a marked difference of the plot. That 
where inoculated seed was used was very much larger 
and stronger than where the seed was not inoculated. 
Though there may be some failures, I think the out¬ 
look for Alfalfa on Long Island is encouraging. 
Suffolk County, N. Y. b. f. hallock. 
