THE BEE-KEErERS' REVIEW. 



115 



w;is tho lack of ox.v,ut'ii. He said the 

 hees would "live slower." eat less, 

 and enter more eoinpletely into a 

 liibi'rnalini; stat(> than when given a 

 generous supply of oxygen. This is 

 simply theory, and each one can take 

 it for what he thinks it wortli. Tlie 

 tacts ar(> that I wintert'd l)(>es snc- 

 cessfully by this method, year after 

 year, gradually increasing the number 

 each year until I met with disastei 

 when 1 put !>i') colonies into one pit. 

 What caused the loss 1 am not able 

 to say positively. There was no dis- 

 ease or d.vsentery. The combs were 

 bright and clean, and almost no lioney 

 consumed. The bees were simply ab- 

 sent—had left the hives and crawled 

 all through the straw with which the 

 hives were surrounded. Sixteen hives, 

 each containing a (pieen and a handful 

 of L'ees was all I had left alive in the 

 spring. It is possible that so many 

 colonies in one bunch generateo so 

 much heat as to drive the bees from 

 the liives. 



For two or three years I put bees 

 in two pits, ventilating one and not 

 the other, but could see no advantages 

 in ventilation, so abandoned it. If the 

 ventilation did no good, it certainly did 

 no harm. The temperature in these 

 pits is very uniform. In those that 

 were ventilated, a tlu-rmometer was 

 suspended by a cord down one of the 

 ventilating tubes, so the thermometer 

 hung by the side of the hives. All 

 winter long the mercury never went 

 above 4.3 degrees nor below 40 de- 

 grees. Zero weather, or 75 degrees 

 outside temperature in 'Slay had little 

 effect upon the inside of the pit. 



All of my successes in wintering 

 bees in pits were in a dry, sandy soil. 

 I have had several failures in a clay 

 soil. 



Perhaps some will say that the air 

 came through the sandy soil. Perhaps; 

 but Prof. Cook years ago sealed up 



two colonies by throwing water over 

 them in winter, and allowing it to 

 free/,(\ thus sealing them up hermet- 

 ically, yet they wintered well. 



Mr. Heddon tells of an old farnu'r 

 who closed tlie entrances to his hives 

 with blue clay, expecting the ])ees to 

 (li(>, and thus allow him to secure the 

 honey. In two weeks he opened the 

 entrances, when great was his disgust 

 at the merry manner in which the 

 bees enjoyed their freedom. This was 

 in the fall of the year. 



Many years ago Geiieral D. L. Adair 

 pasted paper over the entrances to 

 some boxes of honey containing bees 

 .iust as they came from the hives, yet 

 the bees bon* the conlinenieiit. and 

 lack of air, nniny days. 



Years ago. many men went to the 

 expense of admitting air to their bee 

 cellars tln-ough long pipes laid under 

 ground. Sub-earth ventilation was ex- 

 pected to do great things. Pipes were 

 opened and closed to regulate the tem- 

 perature. Gradually they were open- 

 ed and closed less and less, and finally 

 abandoned altogether. The bees win- 

 tered the same whether the pipes were 

 open or closed. 



An endless number of such instances 

 as I have given might be mentioned. 

 On the other hand, so good a scientist 

 as Mr. Cheshire tells us how often the 

 air in a hive must be changed if the 

 bees consume only V2 oz. of honey per 

 day. There is a discrepancy here that 

 is hard to explain. 



The foregoing was written on the 

 train, and I had just finished it when 

 the train arrived in Lansing. I called 

 upon my friend A. D. D. Wood. He 

 intends to build a large cellar this 

 year — large enough to hold 600 colon- 

 ies. He liad written to Capt. J. E. 

 Hetherington asking for his advice re- 

 garding the necessary size. Tlie Cap- 

 tain told him that his cellar for 1,000 

 colonies was 16x80 by eight feet high; 



