My experience in wintering bees has been very successful. I built a bee house or shed facing the south that will hold six hives, with the front end of the hives exposed to the weather. The hives are spaced about 8 or 10 inches apart, so as to allow packing around the sides and back with leaves or other material.

The roof or cover is sloped a little to the back and hinged on the front, so it can be raised at any time to examine the hives, and is high enough above the hives to admit a full-depth extracting-super or two section-honey supers. I make a light frame out of 2 x 34-inch pine with a brace across the middle to strengthen it. This I cover

with ordinary wire netting and fit it into a 4-inch plain section-honey super so it will rest on the tin strips that go across the ends. If the screen is tacked on the upper side of the frame it leaves about 3/4 or 7/8 inch of space above the brood-frames when placed directly on the hive-body. This makes a fine clustering-place for the bees in winter. By raising the cushion or packing, whichever the case may be, I can see the bees, the amount of stores, and the condition they are in, without disturbing them.

I have looked at my bees every month in the year (always on a pleasant day) without disturbing them in the least. If it looks as if they were running short of stores I

put a few pounds of cube sugar right on top of the netting and under the cushion or packing. I have had very good success with cube sugar for winter feeding; and although some may crumble and sift down through, it doesn't amount to much. It is not very expensive, and saves the bother of making or experimenting with other kinds of winter feed.

The packing material above the broodnest absorbs the moisture that generates in the hive, and keeps the brood chamber dry and sweet all through the winter.

I have never lost a colony wintered in this way, and the bees always come out strong in the spring.

I consider it a great advantage to be able to see the bees, and feed them if necessary, during the winter with out disturbing them.

If the spring is very late, or the weather is bad, I can leave them packed in the shed just as long as I wish. This is a great help in rearing early brood, and also securing early honey by putting on a super as fast as the bees need

it.

If the hives were exposed to the open on cold spring nights the bees would not carry

the honey above nearly as fast as when the hives and supers are protected and warm. West Hartford, Ct.

I am sending several photographs of combs and old hives that I have photographed.

Fig. 1 is an old box hive with stone crock for super. The mark X on the crock is

where a wasp has built a clay cell. The two marks O on hive-body are where two sticks are run through the hive, crossing each other to hold up the comb.

Fig. 2 is another old hive split in two,

showing the two sticks crossing each other to hold up the combs.

Fig. 3 is a view of surplus stored in a common box, used as a super on an old box hive.

In Fig. 4 the comb with the large dronecells partly capped with honey is a wired frame that by mistake I put in a hive without any foundation whatever. The other one is a frame that contained a full sheet of foundation drawn out into worker comb. The frame without any foundation was at the side of the hive, the last frame. Had I made the mistake, and placed it in the center, it would have been filled with drones, I sup

pose.

About porticos, I will never be without them. I am using one in front and at back for protection from heat and especially rain. In hot weather

I take the movable end piece out for ventilation. Before using porticos in front or back, I have lost at the

least a quart of bees from several colonies when a rain came up, especially at night

when they cluster out like a swarm. York, Pa.

Mr. George M. Huntington's article, page 215, March 15, "Extracting from the Broodcombs before the Honey-flow to Give the Queen Room," is an incentive to me to write a few words along that line. Right here I want to say that I heartily agree with the editor's note, that "locality is practically the whole thing." In some localities it may be necessary and practicable to extract before the flow in order to give the queen enough room, and in other localities (my own for instance) it is far from necessary.

My main trouble is to get my bees to store enough honey in the brood-chamber to carry them through to the next honey-flow.

For some time I have been of the opinion that the ten-frame hive is not large enough where running for extracted honey. If I were to start all over again I certainly would adopt the twelve-frame hive. For me to change now would mean too great an expense in money and labor, as I have sou.e 300 colonies in ten-frame hives, and over 700 supers with drawn and wired combs.

With us we have the summer flow of white honey and the fall flow of buckwheat, the latter being the heaviest flow as a rule. I find that, with the ten-frame hive during the buckwheat flow in August, in most cases where there is a good prolific queen there will be from eight to ten frames filled with brood, leaving very little room for honey; consequently the honey all goes up into the supers; and if it happens, as it has for several years past, that the flow shuts off suddenly, due to one cause or another (generally a drouth at that time of the season), the bees will be short of stores; for with us buckwheat is the last of the honey-flow except for a limited amount of wild aster and a little second-growth sweet clover. By using a twelve-frame hive the queen would require no more room for brood than in the ten-frame hive, and there would be two extra combs for winter stores. In the spring the brood-chamber should be contracted down to six or eight frames by using a heavy division-board and putting the empty combs to the outside. In my opinion it will not be many years before the twelveframe hive will have taken the place of the ten-frame as a standard hive.

When our bees went into the cellar, December 20, they had several combs of brood, and in some cases the queens were still laying; but a number were so short of stores that it was necessary to feed them.

My best colonies are the ones that have plenty of honey in their hives in the spring.

I do not practice stimulative feeding in the spring. I believe it is better to let nature take its course; and if there is plenty of honey in the hives when the bees come out of winter quarters I'll risk but that you will have rousing colonies by the time the flow has come, providing you have a good young queen in the hive. Understand that I am speaking for this locality in New York.

As I have some foul brood in my apiaries I do.not feed much honey, but use sugar syrup, as there is too much risk in feeding honey from a yard where there is disease, unless first boiled. Two years ago I had considerable disease among my bees; but to-day I have only a few colonies affected. In 1912 I treated over fifty colonies during the season; but later on a few more affected colonies appeared, and were treated in the spring of 1913. No more disease appeared until August, and I thought I was rid of foul brood; but in August, toward the close of the buckwheat flow, I discovered several colonies that were slightly affected; and as it was too late to treat them I removed them from the yard, and left them to be treated this spring. I am in hopes to stamp it out entirely this season.

I have a simple system of keeping track of my diseased colonies. Some who have disease in their yards may think it worth trying. I take some small-size roofing-caps and dip them in blue paint (any color will do); and when I discover a colony that is affected, I tack two of these blue caps on

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the rear right-hand corner of the hive. If they are only slightly affected they will oftentimes clean up of their own accord during a good honey-flow. If so, I remove one cap, the remaining tag showing that the colony has been diseased but has cleaned up. Such colonies are watched closely; and if disease appears later, as it often will, the secord tag is again placed on the hive. After a colony is once diseased one tag always remains on the hive until the colony is treated. In most cases where there is once disease, and they clean up, it will appear again some time. I have had slightly diseased colonies that cleaned up and showed no signs of disease the following year; but the second year it appeared again

Note the

mach worse than the previous time. Of course the blue tags do not tell what year the colony was diseased. That part is taken care of on a record-tag which is nailed on the same correr of the hive, and which will be described in a later article.

As this has happened time and time again, I have given up letting the bees clean up themselves; and if they are only slightly affected, I remove the affected combs, replacing with foundation. I do this only when there are but a few diseased cells on one or two combs. If more combs are diseased, I treat then at once, and put the diseased combs away in a bee-tight room to be melted up later.

I formerly burned out the hive-body,