298 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



punity, as one might do in case of a dry 

 one, unless the colonies are all strong 

 and their stores sound. 



TROUBLES FROM BAD STORES HARD TO 

 OVERCOME. 



But, after all, I do not profess, as the 

 manner of some is, to have solved the 

 wintering problem. Given sound stores, 

 and I can winter bees with certainty, but 

 who cannot do the same? But how to 

 winter safely bees, supplied with stores 

 such as we used to get occasionally twenty 

 years ago, is 

 an unsolved 

 p r o bl em to 

 me, and, so 

 far as I know 

 to everybody 

 else. We 

 have not 

 learned how 

 to p r e V e n t 

 the disease 

 caused by 

 the con- 

 sumption of 

 bad stores in 

 confinement. 

 We perhaps 

 know better 

 how to alle- 

 viate it, that 

 is all. 



But before 

 d i sm i ssing 

 the subject 

 of tempera- 

 ture, I ought 

 to say that in 

 the case of 



such a cellar as I have descril)ed, there 

 should be no trouble in controlling the 

 degree of heat by opening the door 

 more or less on cool nights as the occasion 

 seems to require. It can hardly fail to 

 be warm enough if reasonably stocked 

 with bees. 



VENTILATION OF LESS IMPORTANCE 



THAN FOOD. 

 Another matter I have not yet learned 

 much about is ventilation. With me. 



GEO. W. BRODBECK, Los Angeles, California. 

 the National Association for 1904. 



bees have wintered both well and ill with 

 unlimited ventilation, and they have done 

 the same with the cellar as close as I 

 coidd keep it. I reason that, with pure, 

 well-ripened honey, or sugar syrup, for 

 food, with the bees in the quiescent state 

 that they should assume in winter, the 

 office of breathing is very limited, and 

 that even in the closest cellar the bees 

 are sure of enough air When their food 

 is bad, it seems likely that more air is re- 

 quired to as,sist in eliminating impurities, 



and it is quite 

 possible that 

 in a tight eel- 

 la r they 

 HI i g h t n o t 

 get all that 

 w o u 1 d be 

 b e n e fi cial 

 and at all 

 events under 

 such circum- 

 stances I 

 should ai m 

 to p r o V i de 

 some degree 

 of ventila- 

 tion. I do 

 not think 

 bees ever 

 smother in a 

 cellar, if in 

 hives that 

 are well ven- 

 t i 1 a ted, but 

 they are said 

 to do so in 

 close hives, 

 ■ though per- 

 haps they worry themselves to death 

 rather than smother. The effect is the 

 same, and in putting colonies into; the 

 cellar the hives should be given ample 

 •ventilation in such a way that it cannot 

 be choked by dead bees. I know of no 

 simpler or more effectual way to do this 

 than to remove each bottom board entire- 

 ly, leaving the whole bottom of the hive 

 open. My hives have covers with a }i 

 inch cleat across each end on the upper 



Secretary of 



