■August, 1913. 



273 



American Hee Jonrnal 



)>^.^^^ ) 



TllK Al'IAR\ BlII.DINi; AT THE COLLEGE AT AMHERST, MASS. — (See page 2'i; 



ear to the entrance, and I don't believe 

 the bees were disturbed by it at all. If 

 my listening made them noisy, there 

 should have been more noisy ones 

 than those few. Still, I am not sure. 

 Sometimes a colony is stirred up by 

 the mere odor, perhaps, from my head. 



So it looks true that colonies have 

 noisy spells without anything being 

 wrong, and if that be the case, it fo'- 

 lows that with .'iO or 100 colonies in a 

 cellar there might never be a time of 

 entire silence in the room, although 

 some colonies might be silent at most 

 times. That e.xplains my saying that a 

 continued silence maybe undesirable if 

 the periodical waking up is a normal 

 performance. 



With a difference of 5 to 7 degrees 

 between the top and bottom of a pile, 

 it is impossible to have all the bees in 

 a room at the same temperature. The 

 nearest to having all at the best tem- 

 perature, supposing 4.5 degrees to be 

 the point, is to keep the thermometer 

 hanging just inside the door that en- 

 ters the bee-room from the furnace- 

 room, some -5 feet from the ground, as 

 I find at that point the temperature 

 will usually be about the same as at 

 the middle of a pile in the center of the 

 room. 



Like enough bees will stand no small 

 variation of temperature without any 

 great harm — possibly from -W to 50 de- 

 grees — provided other conditions are 

 all right. All the same, the nearer they 

 can be kept to the degree of greatest 

 quietude the longer they can stand 

 confinement. 



It occurred to me that by taking a 

 single colony and noting its behavior, 

 I might do better than to give my at- 

 tention to a number. If I could begin 

 at or below the point of greatest quie- 

 tude, and then raise the temperature of 

 the cellar, listening to the bees at the 

 various degrees of temperature, I might 

 learn something. It was so late in the 



season when this occurred to me, that 

 the weather was not cold enough to 

 begin very low, only as low as 4-5 de- 

 grees. 



.^pril 2, the bees seemed quiet in 

 cellar, so far as I could tell with the 

 noise of the outside wind. The win- 

 dow and doors had been wide open, 

 and a gale had been sweeping through 

 the cellar, so that the air could not be 

 otherwise than pure. .\ thermometer 

 on the top of colony No. 2 showed 45 

 degrees, the same as outdoors. Put- 

 ting my ear to the entrance of the hive, 

 I could hear only a low murmur, and 

 it seemed to me that I could hear just a 

 very little rattling of the wings such as 

 bees make when it is too cold for them. 

 But I could not make sure of that. If, 

 fortunately, they were just a shade too 

 cold, then I ought to be able to catch 

 a point of entire silence with the rising 

 of the temperature, if there is a point 

 of temperature at which bees are gen- 

 erally, if not always, silent. This was 

 at 8 am. I immediately closed the 

 window and the outside door, leaving 

 open the door between the bee-room 

 and the furnace-room. At 8:30 the 

 thermometer on the hive stood at 49 

 degrees; at !) o'clock it was 52; at 10 

 o'clock, -53; at 11 o'clock, 55. 



Much to my surprise — and 1 may say 

 to my disappointment — during these 

 changes of temperature, I could dis- 

 cover no difference in the murmur of 

 the colony. If there was any differ- 

 ence it certainly was very slight. At 11 

 o'clock, as stated, the thermometer on 

 the hive showed 55 degrees, and the 

 outdoor temperature was 54. I shoved 

 the tire in the furnace, and at noon it 

 was 5ii degrees on the hive. I thought 

 there was a distinct increase of the 

 murmur, but it is hard to be positive 

 about a thing for which you have no 

 absolute measure, especially when you 

 must remember from one hour to an- 

 other. At 12 :40 it was 62 degrees ; at 1 



o'clock, ()4, and by this time the bees 

 were quite a bit noisier and were irrit- 

 able, so that the mere presence of my 

 head at the entrance (was it the odor ?) 

 stirred them up. At 1 :30 p.m. it was 62 

 degrees, the fire having been dampened, 

 and by 3 o'clock it was 60, where it re- 

 mained until 6 p.m., when the cellar 

 was thrown open. During the after- 

 noon the noise of the colony remained, 

 I think, about the same as at 11 a.m. I 

 should say the bees were noisy, but not 

 nearly so noisy as they are sometimes, 

 nor did they seem inclined to run out 

 of the hive as they sometimes do. 



I was little the wiser for my observa- 

 tions. I know the bees are quieter at 

 45 degrees than at 64, and I think that 

 the point of greatest quietude — if there 

 be such a point — is somewhere not very 

 far from 45 degrees. But I certainly 

 have no positive and e.xact knowledge 

 about it, and I respectfully refer the 

 problem to Dr. Phillips. 



{Concluded in Seitlimber.') 



Feeding Bees Sugar Syrup 



BY GEORGE SHIBER. 



A MINISTER friend of mine, in the 

 course of a talk, made the re- 

 mark that "we should not wait 

 until our friends are dead before 

 giving them the bouquets they 

 are entitled to." I believe he is right. 

 I need the largest one I have. I wish 

 I could have it even brighter and larger 

 than I can build with this pen. 



Turn to page 78 of the American Bee 

 Journal for this year, " Effects of Feed- 

 ing Sugar." I have read it over sev- 

 eral times. It reads truth and common 

 sense. No one could doubt that the 

 writer had been in the bee-yard and 

 handled bees — yes, handled them "a 

 whole lot." He may live to be a very 

 old man, but he never will write a 

 sounder article than that. 



I was a blundering lad just commenc- 

 ing with a few bees in 1888, and for 

 years later there were bee-keepers who 

 recommended, in the bee journals, to 

 extract the honey from a colony in the 

 fall and feed sugar sjrup, that the dif- 

 ference in the price of the two would 

 be the gain, .^s the editor says, " It 

 looks good," I am sure it could only 

 be attended by loss. Never in a single 

 case could it be made a profitable 

 operation. Exceptions may be thought 

 of, such as honey-dew in whole or part, 

 or poor honey ; but even then I do not 

 think it would be the best thing to do 

 to extract all the stores in the fall and 

 feed syrup. 



By the way, has anybody done it on 

 a very large scale ? Take an apiary of 

 200 colonies, and extract all of the 

 honey in the several brood-chambers 

 in September. Say! you will have a 

 job on your hands. It is much easier 

 said than done. Oh, yes ! it <«« be done, 

 but I should want good wages for the 

 work. 



What shall we do if the stores are 

 not of so good a quality as we should 

 like, and would not winter the bees 



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