1879 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTUKE. 



355 



before. One-half to perhaps three-fourths 

 of all the bees in the northern states per- 

 ished. Houses and cellars were a splendid 

 investment for such a winter, while they 

 might have been a perfect nuisance the win- 

 ter before. 



Now a good cellar has one very obvious 

 advantage over any building made above 

 ground, for the earth at the sides and under 

 the floor will shut out frost in those direc- 

 tions, and a good building over head will 

 afford protection above. It is not, in fact, 

 very difficult to make a cellar without win- 

 dows perfectly frost proof, and we want no 

 windows in the apartment where the bees 

 are kept, for the darker it can be made the 

 better. Besides keeping the frost out, a 

 good cellar is comparatively cool, even in 

 the summer time, a condition that is hard 

 to be secured in a room above ground. 

 What then is the objection to a cellar? The 

 principal one, in our clay soil here in Medi- 

 na, is that it is almost of a necessity damp. 

 A good, clean, dry, frost proof cellar, in a 

 sandy soil, is perhaps as good a place for 

 wintering bees, as can well be arranged. If 

 it can be in a sandy side hill, so that the 

 bottom of the cellar is on a level with the 

 apiary, it seems as if almost nothing more 

 could be asked. I should ask one thing 

 more, however, and that is, that the hives be 

 arranged permanently in this cellar, and the 

 bees be allowed to go out at their pleasure, 

 as they do in the house apiary. There are 

 two difficulties in the way of doing this: 

 first, it would be difficult to fix an entrance 

 not too long, and that would not admit 

 frost; second, the bees would lack the ben- 

 efit of the warmth of the sun during the 

 spring months. I do not see, at present, 

 how we can get anything much better than 

 the chaff hives, and the house apiary. 



HOW TO GET RID OF DAMPNESS, AND SE- 

 CURE PERFECT VENTILATION IN 

 CELLARS. 



It was long ago noticed by many, that 

 bees wintered in cellars directly under the 

 kitchen stove came out in line condition, 

 while others where there was no stove near 

 the bees wintered badly. This seemed to 

 show conclusively the benefit of artificial 

 heat, for warming and drying the atmos- 

 phere. If you will recall what has been 

 said in regard to cold and warm currents of 

 air, you will see that to change the air 

 thoroughly in any apartment, you must get 

 up a circulation, by heating a portion of the 

 air, or by other means. Putting a stove in 

 a room or cellar answers nicely for drying 



and thoroughly ventilating the apartment 

 at one and the same time. As this would 

 be likely to cause a disturbance among the 

 bees, it is much better, to run a pipe, such 

 as a stove pipe, into or through the room. 

 A very common plan is to attach a pipe by 

 an elbow to the pipe coming from the cook- 

 ing stove. Carry this down into your bee 

 cellar to within 6 inches of the floor. The 

 draft from the stove will "pull" the air up, 

 even the damp air from the floor, and fresh 

 air will find its way in through the crevices, 

 to take its place. If you wish to be sure 

 that a current of air is constantly going up 

 this pipe, throw a burning rag or paper on 

 the floor, and the smoke will show you how 

 the air rushes up the pipe. 



I believe the large bee-keepers of York 

 State, generally, have decided on in-door 

 wintering, and Mr. L. C. Boot, in his Quin- 

 by's Bee-Keeping, just out (May 1879), gives 

 us some very valuable ideas on the matter. 

 Becognizing the points I have just men- 

 tioned, they have, at considerable expense, 

 prepared underground rooms, to be dried 

 and heated by suitably arranged furnaces. 

 They have entirely discarded buildings 

 built above ground. Mr. Boot particularly 

 enjoins quietness, and to this end, advises 

 that no one go into the bee room during the 

 winter. Also that the hives be supported 

 from the floor, or ground, and not placed on 

 shelves or benches, as is so commonly done. 

 This would avoid disturbing the bees in the 

 other hives, when you are handling any one 

 of them. The clamps or cellars are, if pos- 

 sible, built in a side hill, and the roof over- 

 head is covered by at least a foot of dry 

 earth, which is kept dry by a good shingle 

 roof over this. The bees are to be put in 

 these rooms during dry weather in the fall, 

 and, if I am correct, they are not to be taken 

 out until pollen and honey can be obtained 

 in the spring. 



I hardly need to say that a cellar or frost 

 proof repository should have double doors, 

 and if there be windows, they should be 

 fixed in a manner that will be equivalent to 

 making them double, being sure that no 

 portion of the walls ever shows a bit of frost 

 to melt, and thus produce dampness. A cel- 

 lar within a cellar would be the thing, and 

 if it can be so perfectly protected from 

 dampness that the dust on the floor will re- 

 main dry all winter long, it is about as near- 

 ly perfect as it can well be, if perfectly dark, 

 and well ventilated; that is, so far as getting 

 the bees through the winter months is con- 

 cerned. If I am correct, our greatest losses 



