312 



September. 191 r 



American Vae 'Journal 



the cellar must be kept dark to keep 

 the bees in the hive. Ordinarily a few 

 bees will be flying out, even if only a 

 little light be admitted, and their num- 

 ber is likely to be over-estimated. One 

 day in the last of March I was told, 

 "The cellar door is open and the bees 

 are coming out in a stream." I stood 

 inside the cellar, watch in hand, and 

 counted the bees that flew out. In 5 

 minutes there were 14. But it looked 

 a good deal more than that just outside 

 the outer door, for they stayed circling 

 about and made quite a show. 



I thought it worth while to do a little 

 figuring. I swept out the cellar 4 days 

 after it had been previously swept, and 

 swept up 9 pounds of dead bees. That 

 made 2h pounds a day. I weighed K 

 ounce of dead bees, and there were 1.51. 

 At that rate there were 4832 in a pound. 

 So 10872 bees had died in each 24 hours 

 of that 4 days. At the rate of 14 bees 

 every 5 minutes, if they flew continu- 

 ously for 24 hours, just 4032 would be 

 lost in that time. So there were more 

 than 2}i times as many bees dying off 

 all the time as were seen to fly out of 

 the open door. That hardly looks as 

 if the open door did much harm, even 

 if the bees were flying out at the rate 

 of 14 every -i minutes. 



Another thing worth mentioning is 

 that moldy combs in my cellar are a 

 thing unknown of late years, and that 

 is due in part at least to the fact that 

 the cellar is not kept constantly dark. 



HUMIDITY IN BEE-CELLAR. 



I never measured the humidity in 

 my cellar, but I know that bees are 

 more inclined to be uneasy in damp 

 weather than dry. I know also that 

 the cellar is much drier since a furnace 

 is in it. Formerly, when the cellar was 

 damp I practiced to a small extent 

 putting in lime to dry it out. I suppose 

 it did some good, but I cannot say how 

 much. I have noticed that when the 

 cellar was damp — before the furnace 

 days — and the weather was muggy, the 

 bees were more sensitive to light than 

 when everything was dry. And so far 

 as my observation goes, I believe the 

 popular opinion is correct, that bees 

 will stand much more cold in a dry 

 than in a moist atmosphere. 



MORT.ILITY IN BEE-CELLAR. 



A certain number of bees die in win- 

 ter, whether outdoors or in cellar. 

 There is some danger that a mistake 

 may be made a; to the mortality in 

 cellar. In one cellar scarcely any bees 

 are to be found on the cellar floor ; in 

 another, with an equal number of colo- 

 nies, three times as many dead bees 

 may be swept up. But it is possible 

 that the mortality may be less in 

 the latter case than in the former, 

 for in the first case all the dead 

 bees have remained in the hive on 

 the bottom-board, while in the other 

 case they are on the cellar-floor. It is 

 no doubt better to have them on the 

 cellar bottom than on the bottom- 

 board. 



Deep bottom-boards — mine are 2 



inches deep — besides being favorable 

 to ventilation, give a much better 

 chance to clean out the dead bees in 

 the cellar. There is no danger that the 

 entrance will be clogged, and if dead 

 bees accumulate on the bottom-board 

 it is easy to clean them out, provided 

 the bees do not cluster down in the 

 way, and in that case the bees are 

 likely to keep the bottom-board clean. 



The beginner need not be frightened 

 to find many bees dying in winter, 

 the number gradually increasing and 

 becoming greatest just before time for 

 taking out in spring. It may be useful 

 to give the mortalitv in my cellar in 

 the winter of 1912-13. 



The bees, 93 colonies, were cellared 

 Nov. 25. The dead bees on the floor 

 of the cellar were swept up for the first 

 time Feb. 14, after a confinement of 81 

 days. The second sweeping was March 

 12, after another confinement of 26 

 days. After another 10 days, March 28, 

 the cellar was swept the third time. 

 The fourth time was after another 4 

 days, April 4. Then the remaining dead 

 bees were swept up after the bees were 

 taken out of the cellar, April .5. It 

 would not be fair to charge up to the 

 last 4 days' confinement all the bees 

 that were swept up after the taking out, 

 for there would, of course, be some be- 

 tween and under the hives, that had 

 accumulated through the winter. .\lso, 

 it should be mentioned, these extra 

 bees would make the mortality through- 

 out the winter at least a little more 

 than shown by my figures at the first 4 

 sweepings. 



The number of pounds of dead bees 

 swept up were : After the first 81 davs, 

 14; after the next 26 days, 18 U ; after 

 the next 16 days, 18!^ ; after the next 4 

 days, 9 ; after the bees were taken out, 

 26. Counting 4832 dead bees to the 

 pound, the average number of bees that 

 died daily, in each colony, figures up as 

 follows : 



In the 1st period 8.98 bees 



2d " 36.47 " 



3d " 60.07 " 



4th " 116.90 " 



The average total loss for each col- 

 ony for the entire 131 days was 44.55, 

 or a daily average of 34 bees. A deduc- 

 tion, however, should be made from 

 this for the amount of dirt swept up 

 with the bees from the earth floor. But 

 this may be more than balanced by the 

 dead bees not swept up. but carried out 

 in the hives. 



SOME GENERAL OBSERVATIONS ABOUT CEL- 

 L.\R WINTERING. 



I don't know just how much better 

 one kind of bees will stand confine- 

 ment than another, but it is generally 

 understood that in shipping queens by 

 mail the escort should be of compara- 

 tively young bees. At any rate, young 

 bees should not die off so fast as old 

 ones ; so my guess would be that for 

 best success in wintering in cellar, as 

 well as outdoors, it is well to encourage 

 late breeding, so that there shall be a 

 large force of bees that are young. Yet 



breeding should not be so late that any 

 bees shall not have had a flight before 

 their winter confinement. 



For winter stores in cellar, I would 

 rather have a good quality of honey 

 than sugar or anything else. Yet it 

 would trouble me to give any proof for 

 the correctness of this preference. 

 Honey contains elements not in sugar, 

 and if I were allowed to guess, I should 

 say th^t these other elements were im- 

 portant in winter as well as in summer. 

 Xor is this view disproved by the ex- 

 ceptional cases of bad honey or honey- 

 dew, when of course it is wise to re- 

 place it with sugar. 



One advantage of a 2-inch space un- 

 der bottom-bars in cellar is the oppor- 

 tunity it gives for feeding. Even if a 

 hive is in the bottom of a pile, it is 

 easy to shove in a sealed frame of 

 honey, a section, or a cake of candy. If 

 necessary, the comb can be wedged up 

 so as to touch the bottom-bars. 



A strong argument in favor of cellar- 

 wintering is the saving in stores con- 

 sumed. That argument loses much of 

 its force when a furnace is in the cel- 

 lar and the temperature stands a good 

 deal of the time at 50 degrees. But 

 when I see the bees come out in spring 

 as bright as in the middle of summer, 

 with no dampness or mold on the 

 combs, I am quite reconciled to the in- 

 creased consumption. With better 

 management and proper arrangements, 

 it might be feasible with a furnace to 

 keep the temperature down to that 

 point where consumption would be 

 least. 



I once reported bees quiet at 60 de- 

 grees. I'm just a little suspicious that 

 at that time the thermometer may have 

 registered several degrees too high. 

 And yet, after a gale sweeping through 

 the cellar all night, with' sweet air all 

 through the hives as well as in the 

 cellar, a temperature of tiO degrees 

 might be reached without stirring the 

 bees into activity. But that possibility 

 might not materialize. 



Anticipation 



BY L.. L. ANDREWS. 



AT first thought one might well say, 

 "What a subject for a bee-keep- 

 ing article." But the more I 

 think over the idea, the more I 

 am convinced that it holds the 

 greatest key to successful bee-keeping. 

 More especially is this so when we 

 practice what our late bee-master, Mr. 

 Hutchinson, always advocated, " Keep 

 more bees." 



There are two lines of work I have 

 found that w'ill urge a man beyond all 

 others in working early and late, and 

 many times on Sunday, too. One is 

 bee-keeping; the other, seeking for 

 gold hidden in the bosom of Mother 

 Earth. When man is removing the 

 pay dirt little by little, and it passes 

 over the riffles or through the sluice 

 box. that separates the shining gold 

 from the gravel, dirt, and other mate- 

 rials that go to make up this world of 



"Buying Cheap Goods to Save Money is Liite Stopping tlie Clacl( to Save Time" 

 It Pays to Buy LEWIS BEEWARE — Always tlie Same— Always Standard 



Send for Annual CntnloR ^hieh will tell 

 yon who is your nearest Histrihiiter. 

 <;. B. Lewis Company. \A atertown, A^'is. 



I 



