Gleanings in Bee Culture

I have used several hives with an outside case filled in between with straw or leaves, for five or six years. Also hives with double boarded sides and ends with dead air space between the boards but I fail to see that they do any better than the single boards. Last winter a small colony in a hive of ½ inch boards wintered well without any protection except the quilt covering on top, and the entrance closed with a piece of wool when the weather was freezing. I have two small colonies (made up in the fall of my nucleus hives) in the same hives, and they have stood thus far as well as others. The only difference that I see, is that they are more apt to fly out when the sun shines brightly, and need shading.

Another experiment.—I saw it stated that empty space beneath the bees was of great advantage. Last winter I removed all the frames from the lower story of a hive and left the colony to winter in the upper story. They did well, but it was a very fine strong colony and proves nothing. This winter I have quite a weak colony wintering in the upper story and doing very well so far.

Third experiment.—Some years ago I was preparing my bees for winter by removing frames from upper story and putting on quilts. In one very strong colony the bees remained on top the frames in large numbers. I pulled off an old wool hat and placed over them and spread the quilt over that. I found the bees filled the hat and remained in it all winter. Since then I have used all the old hats I can find. I notice in some instances that half the bees of the colony are in the hat. When those in the hat get hungry, and those below get cold, how nice and easy it is for them to exchange places, much easier than to go from the outside of the cluster to the inside over or around the frames—that is, provided that is their way of doing—for instance, when one little fellow’s feet get cold he goes inside to warm them, and another little fellow comes out to take his place. This I believe is the generally received theory. I noticed it so stated lately by one of our most distinguished bee masters, (M. Q. in Am. Agriculturist). As I never saw any such commotion among them as would necessarily be the consequence of all this changing in cold weather, you must excuse me for being somewhat skeptical about. Has anyone actually observed this continual changing places in cold weather? Akin to this is another statement we frequently see made—that the colder the weather the more the bees require to eat to keep up the animal heat. This is all very nice in theory, but so far as I have observed, the bees are very quiet and still in cold weather, and scarcely consume any honey at all. These may be subjects worthy of investigation. I don’t propose to discuss them here.

I have experimented some with the Adair-Gallup long idea hive, or rather “New Idea” long hive. I used two hives three feet long, one with large frames 13 square—the other with my standard narrow frames. I gave them the strongest colonies I had, and I must confess that neither of them gave as much satisfaction as the plain two story hives. They may not have been long enough (?) they did not swarm and did not fill the few empty frames I gave them.

I am aware that these experiments do not conclusively establish any particular fact or theory in bee-keeping but they may throw a little light on some points, and I find them useful in my own practice.

Thaddeus Smith, Point Peelee Island, Ont., Can.