September, 1916. 



Y"^^^^^^ 



299 



American Hae Journal i 



of them being motionless in the cells. 

 Under those circumstances, they can- 

 not move their wings, and moreover 

 the oscillations of the wings would 

 produce currents of air unfavorable to 

 the conservation of warmth. Every one 

 who has had occasion to see a colony 

 dead from hunger will agree with me. 

 The bees are packed so closely together 

 that any considerable free motion of 

 the wings is excluded. And a starved 

 colony is indeed a frozen colony. When 

 the bees are unable to produce heat for 

 want of food, the temperature of the 

 cluster sinks and at last the bees are 

 paralyzed and die. Secondly. I believe 

 it impossitile for physical reasons, /. e., 

 the bees are unable to furnish mechani- 

 cal activity sufficient to maintain the 

 caloric equilibrium. A cluster con- 

 suming daily, in very cold weather, an 

 ounce of h.ney, produces about 120 

 greater calories, which correspond to 

 360,0i'() foot-pounds, a mechanical labor 

 which can hardly be produced by a 

 quiescent cluster. 



Nevertheless I admit that, in strong 

 chills, the peripheric bees often make 

 movements with their wings to protect 

 themselves from freezing. Further 

 more I admit that a small part of the 

 production of heat is due to mechanical 

 labor through the muscular work of 

 resf'irat/o?!, circitlatioyi and digestion. 



I believe that the greatest part of the 

 production of heat is purely of a chemi- 

 cal nature. It may be as with the bear 

 or marmot, in their winter sleep, who 

 burn their fat probably mainly in the 

 liver and transform it directly into 

 warmth. The liver is the great stove 

 which warms the blood, and by this the 

 whole body. The necessary oxygen is 

 brought by the arteries, the poisonous 

 gas is eliminated by the veins and the 

 fuel is supplied by the portal vein. I 

 believe that, in the bees, the tubes of 

 Malpighia correspond to the liver in 

 mammals. They are a bundle of ex- 

 ceedingly rich, fine tubes discharging 

 themselves into the small intestine. The 

 oxygen is furnished by a rich web of 

 air capillaries, the fuel — sugar — comes 

 from the blood and the poisonous gases 

 take their way out through the air 

 capillaries. 



It is a well-known fact that the more 

 the bees consume of their stores the 

 more unfavorable are the circumstances 

 of warmth conservation in the cluster. 

 Besides the material loss, a surplus con- 

 sumption has other disadvantages ; the 

 wear and tear on the bee is greater on 

 account of the augmented labor of 

 digestion. What is worse, the waste 

 of food augments in the large intestine 

 and the danger of dysentery in spring 

 is considerably increased. 



Let us now examine how bees pro- 

 ceed to preserve warmth. We know 

 that they cluster together closer as the 

 temperature sinks, in order to diminish 

 to a minimum the surface, which radi- 

 ates heat according to physical laws. 

 The loss of heat is proportional to the 

 surface and to the difference in tem- 

 perature between the surface and the 

 surrounding air. Similarly there is in 

 the cluster a constant radiation of 

 warmth from the center to the periph- 

 ery. For outdoor wintering there are 

 four possibilities : 



1. If there is no warm wall around 

 the colony. In this case the cluster 



takes the form of a sphere, because this 

 form represents the minimum surface 

 of all solids with the same volume. If 

 the room does not allow the formation 

 of a sphere, the bees cluster in the 

 form of an ellipsoid. 



2. If at the top of the combs there is 

 a warm cover, which reduces the loss 

 of heat there is a minimum. In this 

 case the bees form a hemisphere and 

 the free radiating surface is only about 

 4-,'j of case 1. A warm cover, there- 

 fore, saves in cold weather about 20 

 percent of the food. 



3. If two colonies are close together, 

 have one common wall and are both 

 covered with a war ii cushion (twin- 

 hives). In this case, both colonies be- 

 have as if they were a single colony 

 without a separating wall; both form, 

 together, a hemisphere. Therefore, in 

 each colony, there is no loss of warmth 

 against the neighbor, the temperature 

 being the same on both sides. Here 

 each colony forms approximately half 

 of a hemisphere, and the e.xposed sur- 

 face of each colony is only about }i of 

 case 1, or about 5-6 of case 2. 



4. If four colonies are close together, 

 have four common walls, and are cov- 

 ered with warm cushions. All the four 

 colonies behave like a single one and 

 form, together, a hemisphere. Here 

 the free surface is about Yz of case 1, 

 ^/i of case 2, % of case 3 (50 percent, 36 

 percent, 24 percent). If I understand it 

 correctly this would be the case with 

 the tenement hive. 



We thus see that the contraction of 

 the cluster is a means for the regula- 

 tion of the temperature inside of the 

 colony; the greater the cold the greater 

 being the contraction. Another factor 

 of this regulation is the greater or less 

 production of heat by the bees individ- 

 ually. In view of the wonderful adap- 

 tation of the bees to external condi- 

 tions, we judge their proceedings in 

 the regulation of the inner temperature 

 to be as follows : 



When it is very cold, the cluster 

 must produce, in the center, sufficient 

 warmth, that the heat at the periphery 

 may keep the bees from being chilled, 

 /. e., about 57 degrees. Therefore, the 

 colder it is, the higher the warmth of 

 the center must be to make up the 

 greater loss by radiation. This gives 

 a law which appears at first view para- 

 doxical. The colder it is, the higher 

 the temperature is in the center of the 

 cluster. If the temperature of the air 

 is higher than 57 degrees, it is not nec- 

 essary for the bees to form a compact 

 cluster and each bee produces its proper 

 warmth, for itself, probably some de- 

 grees higher than the outside air. 



The above explanations agree well 

 with the researches of Phillips. He 

 found 57 degrees Fahr., the critical 

 temperature of the cluster, i. e., that if 

 the outer air begins to fall under this 

 temperature, the bees produce warmth 

 so that the inner temperature rises. 

 Should the bees allow the inner tem- 

 perature to sink below 57 degrees with- 

 out taking precautionary measures, they 

 would be chilled and would perish un- 

 less the temperature should rise again. 



Phillips has already pointed out the 

 injurious effect of inside or outside 

 disturbances (noise, mice annoyances, 

 drafts of air, unsuitable food, etc.), this 

 producing an unnecessary rising of the 



temperature at the center, with all its 

 bad consequences. 



The circumstances are different when 

 the colony begins to breed. In this 

 case, the central temperature is higher 

 than necessary, i. ? , it is under all cir- 

 cumstances about 98 degrees. The sur- 

 plus warmth causes a loosening of the 

 cluster, which is favorable to the free 

 circulation of the breeding befcs as 

 nurses, fetching pollen and honey. It 

 is then most important to keep up the 

 warmth by cushions or otherwise. 



Zug, Switzerland. 



Queen-and-Drone Traps 



BY F. GREINER. 



SOME years ago it occurred to me 

 that I might more successfully han- 

 dle my bees in the outyards if I 

 could in some way hinder the queens 

 from leaving the hives. I therefore 

 went to work and got out enough ma- 

 terial for a large number of queen-and- 

 drone traps, intending to make them 

 up for use that season. However, I 

 made up only a very few, and after 

 observing how much the bees were 

 hindered by them, particularly in en- 

 tering the hive, how many pollen pel- 

 lets were dislodged from their pollen 

 baskets, the manner in which the 

 drones behaved attempting to gain the 

 outside, etc., I concluded that I would 

 lose more by using the traps than I 

 could possibly gain. I admit I did not 

 test it out. I simply did not have the 

 courage to torture my bees with such 

 a nuisance and I dropped the matter. 



When our colonies are most popu- 

 lous, when most honey producers give 

 the largest entrance, even placing 

 blocks under all four corners of the 

 hives, in order to make it as comfort- 

 able for the inmates as possible, if we 

 are to shut down to a small entrance 

 full of obstructions, thus aggravating 

 the already dangerous conditions, what 

 result can be expected ? Everything 

 crowding to the only exit, multitudes 

 of drones trying to force their blocky 

 bodies through the narrow perforations, 

 thereby hindering the workers! The 

 drones are slow in finding their way 

 through the little cones up into the 

 trap and collect in great numbers. The 

 noise they make is trying on the nerves 

 of the apiarist. 



I think we should have laws on our 

 statutes to prevent such torture of 

 these little insects. I have not found 

 much use for drone-traps so far. 



The clipping of the queens is only a 

 safeguard, at best, in case we make a 

 miss in our management. When every 

 queen is clipped the chances that a 

 possible mass of 25 pounds of bees may 

 go to the woods are small. The larger 

 the number of bees kept in a place the 

 more necessary it is to have all queens 

 clipped. In a large yard several swarms 

 may issue at the same time, and if one 

 queen is with them, they are sure to go 

 somewhere before the apiarist is likely 

 to give them attention. To his sorrow 

 he will discover that the supers on a 

 number of colonies are empty of bees. 

 He may then wonder why. Queens 

 not all clipped. 



Naples, N. Y. 



