WINTERING
Before buying your hives you must decide where your bees are to winter. If you have a suitable shelter you can use the ordinary hives; but if your bees are to winter outside, you may decide that you want the great chaff-packed, double hives. As the summer wanes every hive must be examined to make sure that the colony is strong and that the supply of honey is not short. If the season has been a bad one for flowers, or if the region provides few blossoming fields it may be necessary to feed the bees. Special directions are needed and any bee book will supply them. A strong swarm, supplied with twenty-five pounds to thirty-five pounds of honey, will winter without serious loss in a chaff hive. Other protection than that afforded by a good windbreak is unnecessary. In our furnace-heated houses no part of the cellar is cool enough all the time for the bees. The temperature should not go above forty-eight degrees Fahr., nor below forty degrees; forty-three degrees is considered just right. Sudden changes are bad for bees.
Beehive covered with newspapers and waterproof paper for wintering outdoors
Many experienced bee-keepers winter their colonies successfully outdoors with home-made protection. The ordinary hives, with the covers on but with the supers off, of course, are put into winter quarters in this way: Fold seven or eight thicknesses of newspaper over the top of the cover and sides. Make a neat job of this as if you intended to send the box by mail. Use a few tacks if needed. Over this fold a large piece of tar or other waterproof paper. There is a right way to fold the ends of this outer wrapper, and a wrong way. The illustration shows the right way. If the paper is brought down from the top first and round the ends from the sides over that (the wrong way), pockets will be formed which hold snow and water. Nail thin pieces of wood on to hold the folds securely. The entrance to the hive should not be closed as bees come out more or less on warm days in winter. Be sure that the entrance is always free from dead bees.
Another way to protect hives from the cold when wintering outside is to construct a packing case three and a half inches bigger in all dimensions than the hive. Set one of these down over each hive and pack the space between hive and case with any kind of dry packing material, such as shavings, sawdust, cork chips, dry leaves. Any of these materials used wet would do more harm than good. Some sort of shelf or projection should be so placed over the entrance as to keep it open as with other forms of winter protection.