910. 
WINTERING OUTDOORS 
Fig. 3.—This is a natural windbreak on the lee side of a hill. Additional protection is afforded by a 
picket fence, some farm buildings, and a small orchard on top of the hill. It should be clearly under¬ 
stood that a hillside facing the south is not necessarily a good place for wintering unless some kind of 
obstruction is on the top of the hill to prevent a north wind from sweeping over the hill and down on 
the bees. The hillside where the bees are in this case has a southeast exposure. Over on the east side, 
about 300 feet away, is another hill on the top of which there are some buildings and a row of ever¬ 
greens. Bees have wintered well in this spot for years in what is known as the Leister yard, owned 
by Adam Leister, who furnishes bees every year to the authors. 
This is all right provided there is no wind- 
sweep from the south. 
It often happens that no location can be 
found that provides any natural wind¬ 
breaks. The only thing - that can be made 
available at once is a high board fence. Ex¬ 
perience in the author’s case shows that it 
may be desirable to move the apiary on ac¬ 
count of a failure of honey sources. For 
example, several farmers in the locality 
may suddenly take a notion to stop grow¬ 
ing alsike and put in some other crop to 
give the soil a rest. On account of such 
contingencies fences are made up of panels, 
each panel being held in place by means 
of braces reaching to the ground on both 
sides, the bottom end of the braces being 
nailed to a stake. (See Fig. 8.) This con¬ 
struction not only enables one to “pull up 
stakes” literally but to move the whole 
apiary, windbreaks and all, at comparative¬ 
ly little expense. The panels of fence after 
being taken down can be laid on a big 
truck and carried to the other location. But 
even if there were no intention of moving, 
this construction is cheaper than fence 
posts that must be long enough to reach to 
the top of the fence and into the ground at 
least 2i/ 2 feet. They must be strong enough 
to withstand the heavy pressure of wind. 
Fence posts meeting these requirements are 
rather expensive; and a simple brace made 
up of two %-inch boards nailed together 
is very much cheaper, with, of course, the 
great advantage that the whole outfit can 
be moved to another yard if necessary. Fig. 
6 shows one of the authors’ apiaries as it 
looks from the outside, and Fig. 7 an in¬ 
side view of the same apiary. 
It will be noted in the artificial wind- 
