THE subject of wintering bees is of the greatest importance, and one which is generally very imperfectly understood, if we may judge from the large number of swarms lost every winter and spring. There are many methods recommended as "the best" for wintering bees. One will tell you to keep them cold; another to keep them warm. One will say, put them in the cellar; another, bury them in the ground; another, put them in the attic. Is it any wonder that the beginner becomes confused and disgusted at so much conflicting advice? That bees have been wintered safely by any and all of these old plans I shall not dispute. But I am certain that neither plan will, alone, prove successful in the majority of cases.
By all the methods heretofore recommended, a large number of bees die from each stock, during the winter; so reducing them in numbers that it takes nearly the entire summer for them to regain in numbers what they have lost; while a very large number of stocks are lost entirely.
It will be readily understood that the greater the number of bees in a hive in early spring, the more warmth will be generated; consequently the more rapidly will the brood mature and the bees increase in numbers. It is of the greatest importance to have strong stocks in early spring. This is one of the strong points of the new system of management, taught in this book.
In nearly all the hives now in use, there is no proper ventilation, consequently the honey in such hives becomes sour, the comb mouldy, and the bees diseased. It is impossible, in our variable climate, to winter bees successfully for any number of years, with any degree of certainty, in the great majority of the ordinary hives.
Some, who have met with heavy losses in winter, have taken the ground that the loss was caused by a poor quality of honey, stored by the bees in a wet season, or a large yield late in the fall. But this is a great mistake. Bees will not collect and store honey not suited to their use as food; they make no mistakes on this point.
I might discuss in detail all the different methods of wintering bees, and show the great losses attending each, with causes, etc., but by so doing I should consume more space than I can give in this work. I shall therefore confine my remarks to ordinary conditions of bees in winter, and the requisites to insure uniform success in wintering.
In the winter, bees cluster as closely together as circumstances admit, and the severity of the cold demands. The more severe the cold, the closer they cluster together, in order the better to keep up the animal heat necessary to maintain life.
By all the old methods, the cluster of bees is divided by the sheets of comb, which is a great hindrance to successful wintering. In such cases the bees cannot cluster compactly together, but are spread out between the different sheets of comb. In the Controllable Hive, and on the plan of wintering here recommended, the bees in very cold weather cluster in the space between the wire cloth of the ventilator and the top of the frames of the brood section. They are here able to keep up the required amount of animal heat, as they can cluster compactly, without anything to separate them.
By the ordinary plan, in sudden turns or very cold weather, the bees between the outer combs are often frozen to death. "Oh!" says some one, "that's all hum-bug; you can't freeze a bee." Certainly you can. To satisfy yourself of this, after a very cold turn of weather look under your box hives, if you have them, or any patent hive having a loose bottom board to admit of an examination, and see if you do not find hundreds of bees which have fallen dead from the outside combs. I have examined hundreds of stocks and found them as here described. If you don't believe a bee will freeze, take out a dozen from a hive in a severely cold spell of weather in mid-winter, confine them in a box, and set them out doors, letting them remain only one night. See if they are not dead beyond resuscitation the next morning. This notion that bees will not freeze, is a great mistake, and has led to some very foolish experiments in wintering them.