THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



55 



Krause Bee Cellar— Not Sufficiently Under Ground. 



Controlling the Temperature in a Bee 

 Cellar. 



Last month considerable space was 

 used in discussing the Krause bee cellar 

 which was built so largely above the 

 ground that the temperature was too 

 low. Since then Mr. Krause has sent me 

 a photograph of his cellar, and written 

 me the following letter: 



RiDGELAND. Wls., Dec. 28, 1909. 

 Friend Hutchinson: 



My bee cellar is too cold. 

 The mercury stands at 38. I have par- 

 titioned off eight feet in the front end, 

 and have put in a stove today, and am 

 going to try and keep the temperature at 

 the right degree. 1 think 1 will pack 

 straw behind and between the hives; and 

 this may help some. I have thought of 

 lining the cellar with a layer of brick, 

 leaving an air space between it and the 

 stone wall. Judging from the photo and 

 my description, how would you fix it for 

 another year? Yours truly, 



Fred Krause. 



I can do little more than to repeat, in 

 substance, what I wrote last month. 

 The heat that warms a bee cellar in 

 winter comes from the earth and the 



bees. If a considerable portion of the 

 walls are exposed, the heat escapes too 

 rapidly, and the temperature runs too 

 low. The ideal bee cellar is entirely be- 

 low the surface of the earth. You may 

 remember the picture that I gave last 

 month of my bee cellar here at Flint. 

 It is all under ground, with a roof over 

 head, and a foot and a half of sawdust 

 on the chamber f^oor beneath the roof. 

 The outside earth comes up several 

 inches above the lower line of the saw- 

 dust. Notice the picture upon the op- 

 posite page, showing one of our bee 

 cellars in Northern Michigan. In that 

 locality there are nights, and sometimes 

 days, when the mercury drops to 10 or 

 20 degrees below zero, but )t has little 

 eifect upon the inside temperature, which 

 does not vary much from 43 to 45 de- 

 grees. It is the same in the spring; the 

 first warm days that come do not rouse 

 up the bees. If I had such a cellar as 

 Bro. Krause has, I think that I should 

 bank up around it with earth until it was 

 practically under ground. 



