178 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 



cover 6 combs, clear out to the ends, during 

 a cool night, they will perhaps need G combs 

 rilled so as to average 5 lbs. each. When 

 you get the bees, and the stores, with the 

 chaff cushions on each side, they are all 

 ready to winter, by simply putting a thick 

 chaff cushion over them. This arrangement 

 is not as good as a regular chaff hive, but it 

 has answered for several seasons past, quite 

 well. If the winter is very severe, a colony 

 that would cover densely 5 or 6 combs would 

 be much safer than a smaller one. The 

 main points are, a brood apartment closely 

 packed with bees, and plenty of good sealed 

 stores. With these two conditions alone, 

 the bees will generally winter all right, even 

 in a hive made of inch boards. If the bees 

 are not enough to fill the hive, reduce the 

 size of the apartment until they do fill it. 

 This is usually done by a division board. If 

 the walls of this wintering apartment are 

 made of thin wood, the bees will then keep 

 the thin walls of the hive, as well as them- 

 selves, warm all winter, and we shall then 

 avoid the loss that often ensues by bees con- 

 tinually freezing in the outside combs. 

 This is the purpose of the chaff hive ; it is 

 of about as much use to put chaff and straw 

 over the outside of great heavy hives, as it 

 would be to put your bed clothes on the roof 

 of your house, instead of next to your body, 

 on a cold winter night. 



VENTILATION AND ITS RELATION TO FROST 

 AND DAMPNESS. 



I think the subjects of chaff packing and 

 ventilation are not clearly understood. Bees 

 become damp because the walls of the hive 

 are so cold as to condense the moisture from 

 their breath. If these walls did not become 

 cold, no moisture would condense on them, 

 and no dampness would accumulate in the 

 hives. On a cold winter night, frost some- 

 times accumulates on our windows until it 

 may be i inch in thickness. The amount 

 of ice depends on the difference in the tem- 

 peratures of the air on the two sides of the 

 glass. If the air outside should be below 

 zero, while that inside is 70 or 80, and at the 

 same time is fully charged with moisture, 

 from the kitchen perhaps, as is the case fre- 

 quently on washing days, or even from the 

 breath of many persons, the accumulation 

 of ice on the glass will be very rapid. If the 

 room is kept warmed up the ice will melt, 

 and the water will run down, until the floor 

 becomes quite wet. While running a small 

 engine one winter, in a room having large 

 glass windows, the water accumulated so 



rapidly on the glass that we had to attach a 

 tin trough to the window sill, to catch it, and 

 in a little time we caught a pailful from the 

 end of the spout. The cause is this; warm 

 air takes up and holds in solution a large 

 quantity of water. This water is of course 

 invisible, and we have scarcely any means 

 of detecting it so long as the temperature of 

 the air is unchanged by coming in contact 

 with colder substances, or currents of air of 

 a lower temperature. If the walls of the 

 room are kept warm, there will be no per- 

 ceptible dampness. Let them be chilled, as 

 in the case of the window pane, however, 

 and we shall have the warm air dropping its 

 water the very minute it comes in contact 

 with the cold surface, in exactly the same 

 way that dew is deposited, on a hot summer 

 day, on the outside of a pitcher containing 

 cold water. The process with the window 

 goes on, because currents of air are started 

 both on the outside and inside of the glass, 

 by the heat that passes through the glass. 

 To make this plain, let A, in the cut below, 

 represent the pane of glass. a 



The arrows represent thej^ourse 

 of the currents of air. The great- 

 er the difference in temperature 

 between the outside and inside, 

 the more active are these currents, 

 and the greater is the disposition 

 of dew or ice, on the surface of the / 

 glass on the inside. § 



HOW BEE HIVES BECOME DAMP. 



In the warm room you will see that the 

 air is chilled as it strikes the window, and 

 then falls because it is heavier ; this gives 

 place to more warm air, and keeps up the 

 circulation. On the outside, the cold air 

 next the window becomes warmed, and ris- 

 es on account of being lighter, and this 

 keeps up a similar action on the outside, the 

 direction of the currents being reversed. 

 Thus you see how the water from the air is 

 condensed on the windows, and goes down 

 into the pail. The air in the room would 

 soon lose its moisture, were not more sup- 

 plied from the breathing of living persons, 

 or from the kettles on the stove, from damp 

 air rising from the cellar, or from something 

 of that kind. I need hardly state that the 

 same operation goes on in the bee hive, es- 

 pecially, if the walls are thin, and the hive 

 at all tight. If the top of the hive is a thin 

 honey board, with cold air above and warm 

 air below, ice will be sure to collect over the 

 cluster, and when it melts will dampen the 

 bees. The sides of the hive will be covered 



