ILLINOIS STATE BEE-KEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



53 



in the hive rarely falls below 55° F. 

 If inadequately protected, the tempera- 

 ture of the hive can not be kept so high 

 and the bees must generate much more 

 heat. In single- walled hives it is com- 

 mon for the temperature of the air 

 around the cluster to fall to freezing or 

 lower, in which event the bees generate 

 an excessive amount of heat and per- 

 haps die w^hen they are no longer 

 capable of the necessary muscular ac- 

 tivity. The necessity of packing is thus 

 made clear, and in any locality in which 

 the outer temperature often falls to 

 40° F. or below it is desirable to pro- 

 tect bees to conserve their vitality. If 

 the temperature should fall t,o 40°!'y. 

 only a few times during the wanter, 

 this would not be serious enough to 

 make insulation necessary. It is ob- 

 vious, however that winter protection 

 is beneficial throughout practically the 

 entire United States. 



Necessity of having Young Bees — 



Bees may be compared with minute 

 drj' batteries, in so far as their vital 

 energy is concerned. They emerge as 

 adult bees with a certain amount of 

 vital energy, and when this is exhaust- 

 ed they die, not having power to re- 

 cover lost vitality, as human beings 

 have. To withstand the hardships of 

 winter under usual conditions, a colony 

 must have many young bees, capable 

 of prolonged muscular work. Obvious- 

 ly, the better the wintering conditions 

 the less necessary it becomes to pro- 

 vide young bees, but even with the 

 most perfect wintering it is desirable 

 that there be plenty of young bees in 

 the fall, so that they will be available 

 for extensive brood-rearing in the 

 spring. This calls for prolonged brood- 

 rearing in late summer. Old bees, 

 which have been worn out earlier and 

 are ready to die, soon succumb from 

 the work of heat-generation. 



Danger of weak Colonies — In a strong 

 colony many bees in the center of the 

 cluster may be engaged in heat-gen- 

 eration, and there will still remain 

 many bees to serve as insulators. A 

 weak colony, on the other hand, has 

 less reserves for insulation, and, since 

 heat is rapidly lost, the bees on the 

 inside must generate excessive heat in 

 order that the outermost bees may al- 

 ways be at a temperature of over 50° 

 P. Since the surface of a spherical 

 cluster is proportionate to the square 

 of the diameter, while the volume is 



proportionate to the cube of the diam- 

 eter, it follows that a large colony 

 cluster has a relatively smaller sur- 

 face for radiation of heat than does a 

 small one. Below about 50° F. individ- 

 ual bees become numb, and so long as 

 the cluster remains active the authors 

 have never found normal bees at a 

 temperature lower than the critical 

 temperature, 57° F. In a small colony 

 the inner temperature is often many 

 degrees warmer than that of a neigh- 

 boring strong colony, which doubtless 

 explains the prolonged brood-rearing 

 of weak colonies in the fall. Most col- 

 onies w^hich die of excessive heat-gen- 

 eration are rushed to their doom by 

 the temperature being high enough to 

 start brood-rearing, which is perhaps 

 one of the most unfortunate circum- 

 stances w-hich a colony can experience 

 in wanter. By all means a colony 

 should be so protected that brood-rear- 

 ing will not be begun until frequent 

 flights are possible. 



Since weak colonies so frequently 

 succumb in winter, it is obvious that 

 a too rapid increase in the number of 

 colonies in summer is unwise. Bee- 

 keepers have learned that swarming is 

 to be avoided because of the resulting 

 reduction in the honey crop, and the 

 loss in winter is additional argument 

 against allowing the bees to exercise 

 this instinct freely. It is a common 

 saying among bee-keepers that a rapid 

 increase is usually followed by a rapid 

 decrease. It is impossible to get too 

 strong a colony for winter, the .error 

 always being in the opposite direction. 



Effects of accumulation of Feces — 



Heat -generation causes increased con- 

 sumption of stores; this in turn causes 

 an accumulation of feces within the 

 bees, which is more rapid if the stores 

 contain a high percentage of indigest- 

 ible materials, and the presence of feces 

 causes increased activity, often result- 

 ing in death from excessive heat-gen- 

 eration. Bee-keepers call this condi- 

 tion dysentery if the accumulation is 

 so excessive that the bees are unable 

 to retain the feces. Dysentery causes 

 the death of bees in winter, so far as 

 has been seen, solely by undue activity 

 and excessive heat-production. This 

 detrimental effect is reduced by good 

 stores, but obviously the proper method 

 is to prevent an unnecessary accumula- 

 tion of feces by preventing a heavy 

 consumption of stores, chiefly by pro- 



