I02 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



they in the cellar, if the air is as fresh 

 and pure indoors as out. Mr. Barber's 

 roaring bees, in all probability, roared 

 too much. 



Mr, Doolittle, who winters bees in 

 his cellar on four pounds, by actual 

 weight, would be much astonished to 

 learn that a colony spent a whole win- 

 ter roaring and tugging four pounds 

 of food into the center of the cluster 

 for daily use. 



Well, circumstances alter cases. We 

 are well pleased with our cellar ex- 

 periments and believe (mind you, be- 

 lieve, not know) that in less than 20 

 years it will be demonstrated that the 

 temperature of a bee-cellar (I mean a 

 cement cellar not a house cellar) may 

 go up and down, from frost to 50 de- 

 gees without injury to the bees if 

 only the air is as pure and dry as it 

 is out of doors. I have no cellars to 

 sell, but I am aware that a cement 

 bee-cellar, to be first-class, ought to 

 be built just as soon as the snow goes 

 off, and be sawdusted and dried all 

 summer, so as to be absolutely sea- 

 soned before the bees are put into it. 



It must be borne in mind that, at 

 present, cement is the only cheap ma- 

 terial that will furnish the warmth 

 of the earth without tlie moisture of 

 the soil or water surrounding it. 



PECUI.IARITIES OF A CEMENT CELLAR 



A dry I'oom surrounded by the warm 

 earth must be depended upon in order 

 to allow the central upward ventil- 

 ating flues. It is alone by tliem that 

 dry, fresh air can at present be sup- 

 plied in sufficient volume to meet the 

 demands of the bees. My three flues 

 are all wide open now; and the bees 

 are not roaring because they have or 

 have not a "sniff" of the spring air. 



Tliese three flues have a superficial 

 area of 71G inches, equal to one flue 

 about five feet wide by one foot thick, 

 reacliing up into the air sixteen feet. 



Farwell, Mich., March 9, 1903. 



I.ENTY OF AIR NEEDED IN 

 SECURING HEAT FROM 

 HONEY CONSUMPTION. BY 

 A, C. MII.LER. 

 From many and extensive experi- 

 ments conducted through many years 

 I begin to believe that bees winter well 

 in chaff hives in spite of the packing, 

 not on account of it. There seem to 

 be four "plentj's" on whicli successful 

 wintering hinges, i. e., plenty of stores, 

 plenty of tight sealing and plenty of 

 entrance. There is a very real and 

 very solid reason for this last condi- 

 tion and one so seldom alluded to that 

 it may well be said to l)e utterly ig- 

 nored, and that is an ample supply of 

 oxygen. 



FOUR REQUISITES TO SUCCESSFUL 

 WINTERING. 



Given a box through wliich no 

 drafts can pass (no upward or lateral 

 ventilation), a plentiful supply of hon- 

 ey to burn, plenty of bees to burn it, 

 plenty of oxygen to burn it with, and 

 you have a formula which spells Suc- 

 cess. 



I am led to write of this now be- 

 cause of certain misleading remarks 

 which recently have been going the 

 rounds and because I have just finish- 

 ed another winter's experiments and 

 have the results fresli before me. 



THE NATURAL VENTILATION OF THE 

 HIVE. 



One writer, an authority on many 

 parts of apiculture, not long ago said: 

 "If the change of air has to be ac- 

 complished l)y the entrance alone the 

 bees must exert themselves to create 

 a draft, and this is not good." Two 

 factors he entirely overlooked, i. e., 

 the normal movement of the warmed 

 air in and about the cluster and the 

 formation of heavy carbonic acid gas. 

 Mr, Cheshire has very ably analyzed 



