1.^.6 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



unless it may be to keep them from 

 starving. 



In regard to my near neiglibor, I 

 qnoted liim simi)ly to let tlie fresh- 

 air advocates know that the bees 

 wintered as I have said they did, and 

 were in first class shape to do busi 

 ness after a confinement of five 

 months in an atmosphere that was 

 snpposed to be unhealthy for them. 

 Every precaution was taken by thih 

 neighbor of mine to keep the fresh 

 air out of his cellar when going into 

 it, such as keeping the door closed 

 when anybody went into the cellar. 

 Mr. Bingham says that there is al- 

 M^ays an abundance of fresh air in 

 a house cellar. If this is true why 

 is there so much said about the air 

 becoming unhealthful for the bees, 

 and of the necessity for ventilators, 

 and the opening of doors? 



Mr. Bingham says that bees do not 

 roar in the open air with the tem- 

 perature at 50 degrees. If he will 

 place a dish of feed under a strong 

 colony, where the bees can get at it 

 without leaving the hive, he will see 

 whether they will roar or not. Feed- 

 ing a colony in that way puts the 

 bees in about the same condition as 

 they are when moving honey in-dooi-s. 

 The moving of honey, in winter quar- 

 ters, by individual colonies, does not 

 affect the whole number of colonies, 

 as does a sniff of air from the out- 

 side, when a general roar may be 

 looked for. 



Mr. Bingham says that bee-keepers- 

 long in tlie pursuit sometimes have 

 suppositions wliich have grown rap- 

 idly and fixedly, as the years advance. 

 Although I have spent my life with 

 the honey bee, I don't think this ap- 

 plies to me. It took me from 18r)2 to 

 about 1879 to learn that to get my 

 bees through the winter they must 

 be kept warm. Then came the question 

 of how to keep them quiet, and I was 



unable to solve it until the accident 

 shut off what I supposed was a ne- 

 cessity, and, for the last 2U years, 

 there has been no trouble. Bee-keep- 

 ers here have no fears for winter. 



Mr. Bingham thinks that 20 years 

 will demonstrate that the temperature 

 of a cement bee-cellar may go up or 

 down without injury to the bees, if 

 the air is kept as pure and dry as it 

 is out of doors. My opinion is that 

 if he keeps on giving ventilation as 

 he does, that in less than 20 years all 

 that he will have left to ventilale 

 will be a hole in the ground. 



DeKalb June, N. Y., April 21, 190;]. 



/p^ppC^HE TRUTH ABOUT CUBA— 

 SOMETHING ON THE 

 OTHER SIDE. BY HARRY 

 HOWE. 



The readers of bee journals luiA'e 

 been given a lot of rose-colored views 

 of Cuban bee-keeping; they have been 

 told of its grand features and big 

 crops, but very little has been said on 

 the other side. 



People come here during the tourist 

 season, when the weather is the finest 

 in the Avorld, and write glowing ac- 

 coiuits. They forget that we bee-keep- 

 ers must stay here all of the year; 

 that we must travel when the roads 

 are seas of mud, and work wlien the 

 air is so moist that everything either 

 rusts or molds. The man who works 

 out of doors has his feet Avet half the 

 time. 



The summer, too, is the season of 

 the mosquito and the flea; the time 

 when we look in our shoes, in tln^ 

 morning, for scorpions and tarantulas 

 — and find them at other times Avhen 

 we don't look for them. 



Malaria prevails every wher(\ while 

 consumption claims many vi<-tinis. 

 The common people linve no sanitary 



