Wintering Bees in CellarsPhillips, Everett Franklin
Science
Wintering Bees in Cellars
Phillips, Everett Franklin
Bee culture
(4) There should never be many dead bees on the bottom of the hives.
The live bees should be able to push them out as they die during the
winter. The bees thus carried out will be found on the cellar floor
just below the entrances. If there are bees all over the floor, it
shows that these bees have flown from the hives--an indication of poor
wintering.
(5) The bees should be quiet during the late winter. Noise at this time
indicates that the bees are disturbed by an accumulation of feces,
caused by low temperatures or poor food.
(6) If the bees were in good condition in the fall and have been
wintered well, the loss during the winter will never be more than
one-sixth of the total population of the hive. Such a loss is
excessive, however, and in a well-wintered colony it may be as low as
a hundred bees. This probably depends to a large extent on the age of
the bees which go into winter, and if the temperature is right and the
stores good there will be almost no loss of vigorous bees.
(7) The bees should not leave the hive while they are being carried
from the cellar. If they do, it indicates that they are excited by an
accumulation of feces.
(8) Before removal from the cellar there should be no spotting of the
hives from dysentery. There may be a little spotting after the bees
have had a free flight outside, but if this is small in amount it does
not indicate a serious condition.
(9) When the bees are taken from the cellar there should be no moldy
combs, for the cellar at the right temperature will be too dry for the
growth of molds.
(10) There should be no brood when the colonies are taken from the
cellar. Brood-rearing in the cellar is proof that the cellar is too
cold or that the food used by the bees is inferior.
(11) Enough brood should be in each colony at the opening of the main
honey-flow to fill completely 12 Langstroth frames.
(12) The population of the hive should not decrease appreciably after
the bees are removed from the cellar. Such a condition, known as spring
dwindling, is an indication of poor wintering. For three weeks after
the hives are set out no new bees will be emerging, but the loss of
bees during this time should be so small as not to be noticeable.
THE PRESIDENT TO THE FARMERS OF AMERICA.
[Extracts from President Wilson's message to the Farmers' Conference at
Urbana, Ill., January 31, 1918.]
The forces that fight for freedom, the freedom of men all over the
world as well as our own, depend upon us in an extraordinary and
unexpected degree for sustenance, for the supply of the materials by
which men are to live and to fight, and it will be our glory when the
war is over that we have supplied those materials and supplied them
abundantly, and it will be all the more glory because in supplying them
we have made our supreme effort and sacrifice.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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