86 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



bees may easily be swept through, is some- 

 thing'^I never thought of ; but I think it 

 would suit me exactly. Many thanks for 

 the suggestion. Your experience has cer- 

 tainly very much more weight than any of 

 the experiments I made years ago, when we 

 practiced wintering indoors. 



SUB-EARTH AND OTHER VENTILA- 

 TORS NOT NEEDED. 



CEL,L,Ak OR CAVE WINTERING. 



On page 11 of Gleanings for the present year I 

 see you wish to know more about the sub-earth 

 ventilation to my bee-cellar, which friend Stephen- 

 son speaks of in his letter regarding his visit here. 

 When this outside bee - cellar was built, no one 

 could have made me believe but that any place in 

 which bees were to be kept should have means pro- 

 vided for a direct draft of air through it at any 

 time or all times when the weather was mild enough 

 to admit of it, without running the temperature of 

 the cellar down too low. For this reason I pre- 

 pared for what I considered the best possible ven- 

 tilation of my bee-cellar when I built it, the ven- 

 tilation being done by putting in a sub-earth ven- 

 tilator something over 100 feet long, the same be- 

 ing arranged with two large tile, the one above the 

 other. The under tile was to act as a drain when 

 there was any water to carry from the cellar, or as 

 a ventilator as far as it was not 11] led with water, 

 the upper one always carrying in pure warmed air 

 from the outside. At the top, in the opposite end, 

 was the ventilator to carry off the impure air, 

 which had in it the means of being opened to the 

 capacity of both the large tile, or of being adjusted 

 to any amount required, from the whole amount to 

 none at all. As the sub-earth ventilator was placed 

 deep in the ground, I thought that it need not make 

 the cellar too cold by leaving the upper one wholly 

 or partially open at all times; but when I came to 

 put it to actual practice, I found that, in all cool 

 weather, when there was a wind I could not keep 

 the temperature where I wanted, at all, so I began 

 closing the upper ventilator entirely, except on all 

 days when the mercury was above freezing. As 

 this made an endless lot of work, I resolved to 

 leave it closed entirely for one month, and see what 

 would become of the matter. It was with some 

 misgivings that I went into the cellar at the end of 

 that time, but I found the bees in splendid condi- 

 tion; and, to make a long story short, I will say, 

 that, little by little, I kept shutting up ventilators 

 till I became fully satisfied that enough air came 

 into this underground cellar through the masonry 

 and dirt covering, for all the necessities of the bees. 

 Now, I not only found that the bees wintered just 

 as well as formerly, but a little better; and, what 

 was of more value to me still, I now had no trouble 

 In controlling the temperature. This brings me to 

 another point, which I wish to speak of, and that is 

 evenness of TEMPER-^TURE. 



I see by page 10 of Gleanings that you still hold 

 to your old ideas, that a bee-cellar must necessarily 

 be too warm in a mild winter like the present; so for 

 your benefit, and for the benefit of many who write 

 to me, I wish to say that this underground cellar 

 of mine is just as perfect in this, the warmest win- 

 ter I have ever known, as in the coldest which I 

 have had experience with. The temperature has 



varied but one degree since about the middle of 

 November, it then being 47° and now standing at 

 46°. During severe winters the temperature at this 

 time of the year is not far from 45°, thus showing 

 that a mild winter makes a difference of only one 

 degree with the cellar. This evenness of tempera- 

 ture, and keeping it at about the desired point, is 

 one of the great secrets of successful wintering in 

 cellars, according to my opinion, and one of the 

 reasons why I prefer a cellar entirely under ground 

 away from any building, or that which may give it 

 an unevenness of temperature. The outside tem- 

 perature has been exceedingly warm for the past 

 two months, twice going as high as 63° in the shade, 

 and remaining thus for 12 or more hours; yet such 

 warm weather does not change the temperature of 

 the cellar in the least. 



SHUTTING BEES IN THEIR HIVES. 



On page 24, in reply to Mr. Richardson, you say, 

 " If the bees were in the cellar, I think I should pre- 

 fer to have them fastened in their hives." Now, I 

 should like to have you give us your reasons for so 

 thinking. I thought it was decided by nearly every 

 practical bee-keeper, long ago, that bees should not 

 be fastened in their hives while in the cellar; and 

 really I can see no object in so doing. The reasons 

 for not doing this, are, first, when an old bee gets 

 ready to die it always leaves the hive, if the tem- 

 perature in which the hive is kept will admit of its 

 doing so. Now, in a cellar of the proper tempera- 

 ture, these old bees can always do as nature 

 prompts, and so strive to carry this out that they 

 start, some time before they expire, to get away 

 from the hive; and, if confined to the hive, they 

 keep returning to the cluster, running over the 

 bees, buzzing away on the wire cloth, etc., so that, 

 when large numbers expire at the same time, as 

 they often do, toward spring, the whole colony is 

 aroused, when a struggle for freedom ensues, 

 which is often very damaging to the whole colony, 

 if it does not result in their death. Again, when the 

 cluster spreads out to take in new supplies of hon- 

 ey from the surrounding combs, as most colonies do 

 several times through the time they are confined, 

 they will often come out on the outside of the hive, 

 walk about a little, and return. If on such occa- 

 sions they find themselves prisoners, the same kind 

 of stampede occurs as before, and much harm is 

 the result. After experimenting for years in re- 

 gard to how the hives should be placed in the cel- 

 lar, I now raise them from the bottom-board from 

 two to three inches all around, leaving this space 

 entirely open, so the bees can pass out or in as they 

 please. G. M. Doolittle. 



Borodino, N. Y., Jan. 16. 



When the senior editor dictated the foot- 

 note in regard to the difficulty of maintain- 

 ing an even temperature for cellar winter- 

 ing, during open winters, he did uot know 

 of the even temperature that 1 had been 

 having right along with the 40 colonies in 

 my front bee-cellar. Although we have had 

 weather as warm as 65 in the shade, and 

 that, too, continuously for several days, it 

 has never been above 47 nor below 44 in the 

 cellar ; but with very little attention I think 

 I could have kept it within one degree. 

 With upground repositories, it is no doubt 

 true that it is difficult to keep the tempera- 

 ture even ; but with a good cellar like mine, 

 partioned off by a brick wall and a tight- 



