THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



23 



the hive two inches below. Let's watch 

 them. Do you see a bee move? My 

 little grand son was up here with me a 

 few days ago, and he said '"Grandpa, 

 your bees are all dead." 1 asked him 

 what made him think so. "Why, they 

 don't stir," was his reply. His 

 previous experiences with bees had been 

 with those that "stirred." 



Can you doubt for one moment that 

 bees in this condition are wintering per- 

 fectly? When 1 wake in the night there 

 is actually a comfortable feeling comes 



over me when 1 think of those bees 

 snuggled away there, sleeping away 

 the winter with their heads pillowed on 

 snowy combs of sweetness. Some people 

 talk about the cruelty of wintering bees 

 in a dark, dismal cellar. Of course, there 

 are many cellars which are not fit for the 

 wintering of bees, but, with conditions 

 ideal, there is no more comfortable place 

 in winter for bees than in a cellar, and 

 no manner of wintering them in which 

 their energies are more perfectly con- 

 served for the coming of spring. 



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Selected Articles 



AND EDITORIAL COMMENTS. 



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A CELLAR THAT FAILED. 



Some of the Points to be Considered in 



Making a Good Cellar out of a 



bad one. 



The most interesting article in Glean- 

 ings for Dec. 1st, the most interesting to 

 me, is a letter from Fred Krause of 

 Wisconsin, and the editorial comments 

 thereon. It furnishes a text for quite a 

 lot of things that I wish to say, and it is 

 a very appropriate time for the saying— 

 of some of them The foundation of 

 successful bee keeping here in the North 

 is successful wintering of bees; and, tak- 

 ing one year with another, the most uni- 

 form success is secured with the cellar; 

 but the conditions must be right, or the 

 cellar is worse than the open air. For 

 instance, as Mr. Heddon once said, years 

 ago, in a convention, "In a cellar, cold is 

 a giant." But I must not forestall the 

 points of my extract. In introducing the 

 letter from Mr. Krause, Mr. Root said: 



Where the climate is not too severe, it 

 is undoubtedly better for the beginner to 

 winter outdoors in double-walled hives 

 or winter cases. The problem of cellar 



temperature, ventilation, and moisture is 

 a complicated one; and to have conditions 

 ideal there should be a proper balance of 

 all three. Sometimes an excess of water 

 or moisture does no harm; buta combina- 

 tion of too much moisture and low temp- 

 erature is nearly always fatal. A cellar 

 too warm, with lack of or insufficient 

 ventilation, is equally bad. On the other 

 hand, if a temperature that does not vary 

 much from 46° Fahr. can be maintained, 

 the question of ventilation and moisture 

 is not so important; but a high tempera- 

 ture always calls for a large amount of 

 fresh air. One below 40 is apt to result 

 in too large a consumption of stores, and 

 over-feeding causes dysentery. 



About this time of the year we get 

 numerous inquiries, not only as to how 

 to build a cellar, but as to the cause of 

 the bees not wintering in the cellar last 

 year. To avoid repetition of the experi- 

 ence, the inquirer will describe his cellar 

 and the conditions, and then ask whether 

 he can correct the trouble. The follow- 

 ing letter is a fair sample of some of 

 those that we get. As it states conditions 

 met by many another we produce it right 

 here, together with our reply. 



I wish to get a little information in 

 regard to a bee cellar I built last fall, 

 which proved not to "oe a success in 

 wintering. 



1 built a stone cellar 14 x 28, and 8 ft. 

 high, inside measure, in a side hill, a 

 mixture of clay and sand. About two- 

 thirds of the cellar is in the hill, and th^ 



