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' pleVieli 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



Devoted to tl^e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR. 



W. z. HDTCHiKSON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL X. 



FLINT. MICHIGAN, APR, 10, 1897. 



NO 4, 



AV^ork at ]VEicliigan's 



Experimeiital 



^piarv. 



K. L. TAYLOK, AI'IAKIST. 

 HIGH TEMPEBATUBE IN CELLAE WINTERING. 



:'(. TDED by the 

 i"l unusually 

 mild winter, and 

 iiy putting a large 

 number of strong 

 colonies in u^y 

 bee cellar, I have 

 been enabled to 

 some extent to 

 test the effect of 

 a hiijh cellar tem- 

 jierature for win- 

 tering bees. I 

 was the more resigned to the risk supposed 

 to be incurred by making such an experi- 

 ment on account of a bt lief that a high tem- 

 perature induces conditions that aid the bees 

 in avoiding much of tin- ill effects of the com- 

 mon winter diseaec, the advent of which was 

 anticipated on account »f the large amount 

 of fruit juices which \\as gathered during 

 last fall by the bees. 1 succeeded beyond 

 my expectations, indet I, beyond my desires, 

 in securing a high ten; lerature, for on sev- 

 eral occasions it was with difficulty that I 



kept it down to r>0 by opening the outside 

 door during the night. Even with this free 

 ventilation it very seldom went below 45°, 

 and within a few hours it was back to .")0°. 

 For a considerable part of the time the 

 thermometer stood a little above .^0 but for 

 the greater part of the time at from 48 to 

 50'. 



The bees were put into the cellar compar- 

 atively early — from the .5th to the 18th of 

 November. There were one hundred and 

 eighty colonies mostly hfavy and strong. 

 There were about tw^ity oii L. frames, 

 twenty or thirty in single sections of the 

 Heddon hive and the rest in H^^ddon hives 

 of two sections. All except those in single 

 section H. hives were stored in the cellar 

 without bottom boards. Notwithstanding 

 the high temperature the bees remained as 

 quiet as is usual with the temperature i>'' to 

 S lower. They were also free from a' y un- 

 usual appearance of the winter disease as 

 well as from excessive loss of bees until 

 about the last of February. From this 

 time there was a marked change in both re- 

 spects although the bees seemed to remain 

 usually quiet The iinmber of dead bees on 

 the cellar t ottoin inert ased rapidly— Vjeyond 

 anything I had experienced except in one 

 disastrous winter, and iiliout one-half of the 

 hives became more or less spotted with ex- 

 crement and about ten per cent excessively 

 so. 



(Jn the 2t)th of March removal from the 

 cellar was begun and kept up by taking a 



