ones. In summer I move the hives about 2 inches apart on the sides, and 4 to 6 inches lengthwise, which gives plenty of room to work, and for wintering they are moved together in the center, which gives three inches of packing on the sides.

When first building I used a perfectly flat bottom. I soon found this to be a mistake. It is impossible to set these flat bottoms so that water will not run in at the entrance in the summer. I now taper each end down about 11⁄2 inches and let the taper run back about 8 inches, half of which is used for the alighting-board. This gives a large entrance, which helps to retard swarming.

It will also be noticed how easy it is to use the Boardman feeder, the feeder being placed well back in the side of the hive. This eliminates robbing, and the feeder is out of the way. It can be left on all summer if one wishes.

The cases are built 24 inches high, and rest on the bottom across the ends, telescoping by the bottom on the sides. These can be made either sectional or in one unit. In case the apiary may be moved I would recommend the sectional; but for a permanent location I would rather have the case fastened together solidly. In the summer the cases can be placed one on top of another, making a good place to store the packing material. The case should be built

of matched stuff; or, if plain boards, they should be shiplapped to shed water.

I make the top perfectly flat, and just large enough so that it will cover well. It is roofed with a good grade of paper roofing.

Seventy feet of lumber will build the entire case, top and bottom, if one is careful and buys in lengths that will cut to advantage. The first I built were made from hard pine. This stuff shrinks too much, and is heavy to handle. I prefer No. 2 soft white-pine. It is good enough, and is light in weight. Don't forget the paint.

A great many beekeepers winter their colonies in too many frames. It is very seldom that ten frames are wanted or needed. In this case the bees have only a room which is just 40 per cent too large for them, and it must be kept warm. Is this economy? I think not. More often six combs are enough. Remove the outside combs and put in a division-board, and pack that empty space. Then add combs in the spring as they are needed. Your bees will be all the better for it. This applies whether

wintered in cases or otherwise.

One would think that bees would not fly readily from these cases on warm winter fly days on account of their being packed so heavily that it would take some time for the outside temperature to have an effect on them. I find that my bees will fly just as

quickly from the cases as from doublewalled hives. However, I would rather they would not fly; for unless they have very poor stores they do not need the flight; and if they don't need it they are better off inside.

One of the most valuable features of these cases is the protection in the spring. I have never seen a particle of chilled brood in these cases. Furthermore, the same amount of bees will protect and take care of much more brood than in single-walled hives. They will go to brood-rearing earlier than where wintered in any other way. But room should not be given faster than it is needed. It is more work to give combs just as they are needed; but we must look to the small things if we are really to succeed.

The packing and case should not be removed until it is certain that the bees can protect all the brood the queens will produce. This is one of the few things it pays to put off. I do not remove mine until well into May, depending on weather conditions.

I do not want a sealed cover, neither do I want a burlap or canvas over the entire top of my hives; so I cut a four-inch-square hole in the center of my super covers, this

hole being covered by a piece of closely woven burlap. So arranged I have never had damp packing nor moldy combs.

It is a good plan to fix the bottom so that the wind cannot blow under. In this climate I do not consider it advisable to pack the bottom except to push some straw or other packing under the edges of the bottom to keep the wind out. If I lived further north I would use more packing on the sides and top, and would use a double bottom.

ALL-METAL COVERS.

My hive-covers are made of common black iron. They are just trays used bottom side up. They cost me less than 10 cts. each, and it is about half an hour's work to make one. The corners are bent in and riveted, and the edges turned back. The cover has two coats of paint inside and three outside. I use red lead ground in oil for the first coat, and finish with white lead, Red lead makes a better priming coat on 'wood than white lead. After it is painted and thoroughly dry I paste a sheet of asbestos in the top. Paste made for this purpose must be used or it will not stick. Ordinary flour paste will not do,

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Black iron is better than galvanized if it is properly painted, for the reason that galvanized iron will sometimes scale where

it is bent. When these covers are made, the corners must be made square or they will not lie flat. Peninsula, O.

Mr. R. F. Holtermann:-Your article in GLEANINGS for Sept. 1, with its fine illustrations, will surely prove valuable to me, and doubtless to many other readers as well, who wish to change from cellar to outdoor wintering, and have single-walled hives. I have waited for the description of your winter cases; and having been away from home I am just now getting them made, and find that I need some further advice and am taking the liberty It may of writing to bother you with my troubles. be possible that, in answering these inquiries in GLEANINGS, you would be helping the readers again,

I am located 33 miles south of Buffalo, N. Y., in a rather high, level stretch of country where the west and northerly winds of Lake Erie strike hard, and from 18 to 20 degrees below zero or even colder is not at all uncommon, and our lot is so situated that I cannot very well put up the fence you recommend; but wind is broken from some hives by thick growth of berry-bushes, and I am using good inch material with tongue and groove closely fitted, and painted, so not much wind should go through the packing

cases.

1. Would from two to four inches more of packing on sides, ends, and tops help offset the lack of the fence as a windbreak, or is there some objection to thicker packing!

2. Do you have or recommend any ventilation over the top of the packing if so, how much?

3. Do you put sticks or any thing across the tops of your frames to keep cloths up off them so as to allow a passageway over the frames for bees!

4. How large a passageway do you provide from hive proper to entrance-holes in a packing-case?

5. How large in diameter are these three holes in the packing-case, which, from the cut, I take to be outer entrances leading to each hive?

My bottom-boards are reversible. One way up al lows a 1-inch space under the frames; the other way, only; hives have no portico, and are ten-frame. I have planned to make a passageway from hive to case entrance by cutting boards 6 inches wide, 1 inch thick, just long enough to fit into the hive entrance, planing out crosswise of the board a space % inch deep, 8 long; and it has seemed to me that, to use hive-bottoms with a one-inch space under frames so as to have more room for dead bees would be best by putting the half-inch solid board under the board that has the passageway cut in.

I would raise the passage up half an inch off the bottom of the hive, making it less liable to clog with fallen bees; but this raising up of the entrance can not be done if I have only % inch under the frames. 6. Would you advise a 1-inch space under frames or only the % !

7. Is this % x 8-inch passage about right for strong colonies? If not, please suggest best dimensions or arrangements.

8. How much smaller would you make it for, say, a colony that nicely covers five frames, now in warm weather, and has two frames of brood?

9. How closely would you contract this entrance for the weakest colony you attempt to winter? How small colonies can you reasonably expect to winter safely, provided a good portion of their bees were hatched late in September?

I have some good queens in four or five frame nuclei ?

10. As zero air rushes into a warm room much faster through an opening than warmer air would in zero weather, when snow is not over these threehole entrances would it be wise to cork up one or two of them, removing plugs when weather moderated? or if snow is about up to them, how about shoveling it against the case enough to cover over the holes?

11. I take it that you cover frames with cloths, then put loose packing on top of the cloths without any boards over frames. Would four-thickness ordinary grain-sacking be all right? When you remove several frames outside of the hive, do you use a chaff division-board? and if space is left between the division-board and hive side, do you pack that space and would sacking, carpeting, etc., be all right for that particular place, as I judge that it would be easier to remove in spring?

12. In packing the cases do you crowd in all the leaves you possibly can all about and over the hives or do you press them down only moderately! 13. About how many frames are left in each of your hives in winter on an average? Chaffee, N. Y., Sept. 28.

A. J. O'DELL.

Berry-bushes make a very poor substitute indeed for a protection against winds and snow for a fence 8 ft. high, particularly when the space fenced in is not greater than 40 to 45 ft. square.

The following are the answers to the questions asked:

1. No. The object of the fence during winter is to prevent snow drifting against the winter cases, to keep the cold wind from blowing into the entrance to the hive, and to enable the sun to have more effect in drying out the inside of the cover of the case upon which there is more or less condensation of moisture which escapes from the bees and passes through the top packing.

2. Yes, a hole 3/4 inch in diameter in each end of the case and under the cover. This allows enough air to circulate under the cover to carry off the moisture mentioned in the previous answer.

3. No. I use queen-excluders; but sticks or a Hill device would answer the purpose. The object aimed at is to give the bees a chance to change positions in the cluster when clustering in winter. With comb naturally built by the bees they leave passageways so that the entire cluster can communicate through these passages; but with combs built on foundation they are straight, and each lot of bees between the combs is isolated from the lot on either side. Because warm air rises, the bees can pass over the

combs more readily than they can pass under, especially during winter weather. 4. Four to six inches wide by the depth of the entrance, which is 1/4 inches.

5. Seven-eighths of an inch; but I have found with many colonies this entrance is not large enough when the bees are flying freely; and in many cases I have had the wood cut out between two holes. Where the beekeeper is living near the bees it would be well to have an adjustable entrance; but do not change the position of the opening, as it may confuse the bees and lead to their destruction when the weather is unfavorable. You do not get the value of the three holes 5% inch in diameter in the front board, as described in my previous article, as you appear to ignore it in your description. The winter entrance to my hive is 14 in. deep; the board put in front of the hive has an ordinary entrance cut on the lower side. In addition it has three holes bored in such a way that they come just under the front board of the hive. The object of this is still to have an entrance to the hive should the lower entrance become clogged with dead bees. Again, there should be an entrance to the hive immediately above the bottom-board. The object of this is so the bees can carry out dead bees without taking them over any obstruction.

6. Most decidedly one inch. This enables dead bees to fall away from the combs, and also gives better ventilation.

7. I have no reason to believe that the lower entrance, 3/8 x 8 inch, is not ample for any colony in winter providing the top of the hive is not hermetically sealed, and the top packing is not so compact that no moisture nor air can pass upward. With a front packing under, at the sides and over the entrance, and with no strong current of wind, such an entrance is about right; yet I do not want to be arbitrary in the matter. To any one who wants a wide-open entrance with zero weather let me suggest that he try it in his own home first.

8. I cannot tell. Five frames well covered with young bees should stand an entrance four inches wide.

9. I cannot tell. It would depend upon how badly I wanted the bees. Winters vary. If I had a large number of colonies, and did not want to run any risk, I would not attempt to winter a colony that could not well cover four combs this far north. Such a colony with a good queen and plenty of good stores could give a good account of itself the next season.

10. The cold air, I believe, always rushes into the warm air because the hot air is expanded air, rarefied atmosphere. What you suggest is all right, providing you are there to give needed attention when changes

come.

11. Your supposition is correct as to my cover over frames. Forest leaves are much better for packing over the bees; but the sacking with the leaves added is excellent. Newspapers or other paper in sheets over the cloth on top of the frames or queenexcluder is very good. A chaff divisionboard or a bag with some kind of filling such as wool, carpet, or leaves, is the best way to fill the vacant space in a hive, this space resulting from the contraction of the brood-chamber.

12. No, I do not crowd the leaves used for packing. Let there be some looseness left; press the packing down moderately.

13. There are very few colonies not wintered on the full number of combs-twelve. In the first place, my bees are run on the non-swarming plan, and are much more likely to be full colonies. Next, in outapiaries I do not always have a place secure from robbers; and, lastly, when bees are packed by Sept. 1 or 15 there is not as great necessity of contracting the broodchamber, although it is always desirable in order to secure the best results.

You state you are using one-inch material