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JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC ENTOMOLOGY 
[Vol. 13 
The Amount of Stores Necessary to Last a Colony Until the 
Beginning of the Honey-Flow 
The amount of stores necessary to last a colony until the honey-flow 
begins will depend largely upon the size of the colony, size of the hive, 
and upon the amount of protection which it has. 
Figure III represents, graphically, the amount of stores consumed 
by the bees in each kind of hive throughout the winter. As will be 
seen in an examination of this figure, the colonies in the one-story hive 
consumed less stores than any of the others, while the colonies in the 
packed hives consumed the most. This difference is especially notice¬ 
able during the month of March at which time the stores were being 
used for brood rearing. A comparison between Figure I and Figure 
III will show a direct relation between the amount of stores consumed 
and the number of bees present in each colony at the beginning of the 
honey-flow. 
DEC. JAN. FEB. MAR. APR. MAY. 
_ Unsheltered 
______ Protected by Windbreak 
Fig. 4. A comparison of the number of pounds of stores consumed by colonies 
that are not sheltered with the amount consumed by colonies that are sheltered by a 
windbreak. 
Figure IV represents a comparison of the amount of honey consumed 
by colonies wintered in the open, and those sheltered by a windbreak. 
The sheltered colonies consumed less during December, January, and 
February, but during March they used more than the unprotected 
colonies. During April they used less stores, or rather did not lose as 
much in weight, owing to the fact that brood rearing had continued 
for some time, and since it was greater in the sheltered colonies, the 
presence of the new bees, and what honey could be gathered at that 
time account for the fact that they gained weight during that month. 
