The Wintering of Bees in Ontario (Classic Reprint)

The beekeepers of Ontario lose from 10 per cent. To 50 per cent. Of their colonies through winter loss and f' spring dwindling every year. The colonies which survive, being subjected to the same conditions, are weakened in population and vitality in the same proportion. This is an enormous waste which, if applied to other live stock, would be ascribed to some epidemic. The majority of bee keepers, however, take the smaller loss as a matter of course, and the larger with plans to do better next year. It would be surprising that the heaviest loss usually occurs in the southern counties, if pne did not remember human nature, and the fact that bees will winter there after a fashion in an average winter with out protection. They are, therefore, not protected, and the periodical old fashioned winter takes off 75 per cent. 'of them, completely destroying many whole apiaries.

The bee literature of America for a generation and more has been filled with theories on the wintering of bees and the causes of loss. Many of these theories have since been exploded or ignored; but, as a result of countless experiments and a free interchange of ideas, successful beekeepers have developed methods of winter ing founded on principles which recent scientific investigation is proving to be in the main correct. It would be useless, and often unfair, to attempt to give credit to the originators of different methods or ideas. Like hive-nectar in a honey-?ow, these are free currency amongst bee-keepers who read and attend conventions, and when credit is given, the inventor is liable to be ignored and the copyist made famous.

It has been well said that bees cannot be managed by rule, as they never do things invariably. No doubt, if we understood all the factors of environment and the in?uence of each on bee-behavior, we could say that, given such and such conditions, and bees will behave so and so. In wintering bees in Ontario, bee keepers follow two opposite plans. Isome place their bees in a repository, such as a cellar underground, where they attempt to keep them inactive by trying to con trol all the factors of environment, such as light, temperature, ventilation, etc, until such time as the season and weather permit them to resume their summer activities. Others protect the hives on their summer stands, leaving the bees free to come out and ?y whenever weather permits. Both of these plans, when carried out intelligently, have been found to yield good results, and while much is yet to be explained in this difficult problem successful wintering has been more nearly reduced to a rule of thumb than almost any other branch of bee management.

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