THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



set in. Sealed, or unsealed, it becomes thin- 

 ner ; in the unsealed cells perhaps the more 

 so. Sections of comb honey sitting in the 

 lower part of the cellar will show it. All 

 honey will deteriorate in consistency by the 

 absorbtion of moisture and foul gases float- 

 ing about. Allowing a tub of butter to 

 remain in the cellar a few hours before tak- 

 ing it to a butter merchant will cause him to 

 ask what else beside butter you keep in your 

 cellar and he will pay you two or three cents 

 a pound less in consequence. This indicates 

 impure air. 



From this date on I would make every ef- 

 fort toward a pure and dry atmosphere, and, 

 in order to do this, after much study, labor 

 and experience in the building and ventila- 

 tion of several cellars, I have been com- 

 pelled to forsake the cellar entirely and move 

 the colonies to a repository entirely above 

 ground. 



To obtain such a repository I would choose 

 a large room over a shop or other room 

 where a coal fire could be kept constantly 

 burning. Put in a lining of sawdust three 

 or four inches thick to keep frost out on the 

 sides, but have only a good floor overhead 

 of matched lumber with unmatched lumber 

 for the floor of the repository and let the 

 cracks distribute the warm air which comes 

 up from the stove. Beneath this floor, be- 

 tween the joists, may be a space of 8 or 10 

 inches in depth for an air chamber, below 

 which is the stove room which is plastered 

 overhead. At one side may be arranged a 

 place to admit warm air from below and 

 regulate and maintain the temperature of 

 the bee room between (lO and 80°. I have 

 never known the temperature to go too high 

 in my bee rooms, but GO ' is as low as I would 

 want it to go. When the temperature is at 

 60° or 70° the temperature of the cluster is 

 only about two degrees from it and is as 

 high a temperature as will maintain the reg- 

 ular cluster. So long as the bees are clus- 

 tered they will bear a light in the room, and 

 when the quilt is lifted pay no attention to 

 it, except when the air of the room is op- 

 pressively impure. 



Before starting to move the bees from the 

 cellar select a time when the temperature 

 outside is about 2.5 to 30 degrees above zero 

 and fill the cellar with this cool air for an 

 hour or two. At first there will be some 

 roaring but it will soon die down if it is 

 night, and I should never attempt to move 

 the bees at any other time than at night. 



The prepared repository should remain cold 

 until the bees are all in and there will be no 

 waste of bees unless there are some diar- 

 rlufitic colonies, in which case some of the 

 worst afliicted bees may scatter out, and 

 would, if the temperature were 10° below 

 zero, and if left in the cellar would be out 

 on the floor in a few days. I usually prepare 

 to make this change about the time I detect 

 condensed moisture or the first symptoms 

 of disease in two or three colonies, or when 

 some colonies become a little noisy, and 

 fresh air admitted into the cellar will not 

 make them quiet so that a bee now and then 

 flies out and only one or two come to the 

 lamp at a time. If there are from two to 

 fifteen bees at the lamp I should say that the 

 bees either will be diseased soon or else there 

 are non-porous coverings to the brood cham- 

 bers. In either case they may last until 

 spring, but will come out weak or get weak 

 after being set out and it will be " nip and 

 tuck " to get one-half of them ready to work 

 in sections. One colony well wintered is 

 worth a dozen such. They must be wintered 

 well or they will not spring well, and upon 

 the springing depends their deportment 

 during the honey harvest. These items may 

 apply in the case of 100 colonies. 



As soon as they are moved, raise the tem- 

 perature slowly to 6;")° and there will be the 

 slickest job of house cleaning you ever saw. 

 The dead bees and other refuse on the bot- 

 tom boards will be carried out and deposited 

 on the floor about eight inches in front of 

 the lowest tier of hives and the water and 

 mold that was on the bottom boards and 

 combs will soon vanish. The stench that is 

 characteristic in diarrhcetic colonies will 

 cease, the bloated bees will be " evaporated 

 down " to normal size and the bees in all 

 the colonies will appear, and I believe they 

 really become smaller than when they were 

 in the cellar. In four or five days they will 

 become as perfectly quiet as in any tempera- 

 ture, each bee standing motionless on the 

 comb ; but the clusters are not circular nor 

 so compact as in the lower temperature, 

 there are bees clear out to the corners of the 

 hive and standing on the bottom board. If 

 there is a hole in the covering some bees 

 may come up and stand motionless there ; 

 a little lower temperature will cause them to 

 move slowly down inside the cover and a 

 still higher temperature will bring them up 

 again as the mercury rises and falls in the 

 thermometer. I keep them in this reposito- 



