THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



237 



starvation, from the inability of the cluster 

 to change its position, is the result. The 

 condensation of moisture about the cluster, 

 causing molding and souring of combs and 

 honey, are rightly considered as elements. 

 But bees winter well when these conditions 

 are violated and die when they are observed. 



I will relate some of the circumstances 

 under which I have found bees wintering 

 well, to show how the most varied condi- 

 tions do produce ap^larently equally good 

 results, or dismal failures. My own bees 

 are wintered out of doors in chafif hives. I 

 have, however, sometimes been compelled 

 to winter some colonies in the cellar. I 

 have never lost bees extensively. During 

 the winter of 1888-9 I lost about thirty-five 

 colonies as the result of their gathering 

 quantities of honey dew the previous fall. 

 At my home apiary the past winter a loss is 

 reported to me of three colonies out of 100, 

 wintered in chafif hives with absorbing cush- 

 ions, (or better), porous coverings. During 

 the winter just spoken of, when I lost by the 

 efifects of honey dew, one of my neighbor 

 bee-keepers who winters in a cellar that 

 never before or since has failed, lost all but 

 five of sixty colonies. This proves to me 

 that it was the poor stores and not the 

 method of wintering that killed the bees. 



Among the mountains of eastern New 

 York I once visited an apiary of box hives 

 numbering thirty or forty colonies that were 

 and had been for many years wintered on 

 their summer stands without any protection 

 whatever. They were in a gorge of the 

 mountains where a breath of wind seldom 

 penetrates, though the temperature goes 

 very low. 



At the residence of E. J. Cook, of Owosso^ 

 I saw some thirty colonies wintering in the 

 house cellar in fine shape with simply a 

 thick cloth, as a covering, to retain the heat 

 of the hive and cluster. At Mr. Geo. E. 

 Hilton's home I saw bees in chafif hives 

 wintering well, and they were clustered close 

 against the porous quilt next the chafif. At 

 Mr. Martin's apiary at Hartford, New York, 

 I saw bees being wintered in the cellar with 

 a three-inch rim underneath the frames 

 above the bottom board. Here the bees 

 were clustered beneath the bottom bars of 

 the frames and hanging nearly to the bottom 

 of this rim. At the apiary of Mr. Fritts, 

 near Niles, Mich., I saw chafif hives perched 

 on stakes eighteen inches above the ground 

 with large brick as overhead packing. Mr. 



Fritts regarded snow as very injurious to 

 the bees. On the other hand I have seen an 

 apiary under fruit trees so buried in snow 

 that only the topmost twigs of the trees 

 were visible above the banks, and yet both 

 these apiaries winter well, perhaps equally 

 so. 



At the college the bees have never win- 

 tered periectly in the cellar under the new 

 bee house, while the cellar under the old 

 smaller building, in a dififerent soil, always 

 wintered them well. I have cited all these 

 various methods and conditions under which 

 bees are wintered to prove that no one thing 

 can be responsible for all winter losses, and 

 that the obtaining of any one favorable con- 

 dition will not ensure their safe wintering. 

 We become somewhat familiar with the 

 peculiar conditions and demands of our 

 several localities and know that if these con- 

 ditions are right our bees will winter. But 

 let some of them be wanting and the spring 

 may prove that we really do not know how 

 to winter bees, because we do not know how 

 other than familiar circumstances will affect 

 them. Another cellar, the absence of the 

 usual fall honey flow, or the gathering of 

 honey dew, might perhaps cause conditions 

 that would prove fatal. There are so many 

 extraneous and varying conditions that af- 

 fect their wintering that we avoid one danger 

 but to be confronted by another. 



Many consider dysentery as one of the 

 causes, or the principal cause, of loss. To 

 me it is merely a symptom of disease, and 

 thus it becomes an effect rather than a cause. 

 The consumption of pollen may cause dys- 

 entery, but I am of the opinion that bees 

 will not consume excessive amounts of pollen 

 or become diseased from this consumption 

 except when other more dangerous causes 

 are at work. The pollen theory might seem 

 true if we did not look deeper and find 

 more reasonable explanations. 



Let us next analyze separately some of 

 these many influences and then perhaps we 

 may be able to state some of the conditions 

 of environment under which we may place 

 our bees with tolerable assurance that they 

 will winter safely. 



Our first reason is lack of stores or starva- 

 tion. Although this is not the principal 

 cause of winter loss, still I have placed it 

 first, for the reason that it is expected in all 

 climates and under all conditions. The 

 amount of stores needed by a colony of bees 

 to carry them through a Michigan winter 



