levoTepToieesfljoNeY-MOMe-iNTeResTS^ 





Vol. Xlll. 



APUIL 15, IHUb. 



N«. S. 



TEHMS:81.00PerAnnum, IN ADVANCBil X"",,/ -TV 7. 7 V n 7i rt /-7 T-i^ 1 Q'7^ f Clubs to different P08tofflce8. NOT LBSs 

 :;Uople8for8l.90-,3tor82.75;5for84.00, HihiCiOl Lb fLCtV Lit J. O / iL^ . I than «) cts. each. Sent postpaid. In the 

 10 or more, 75 cts. each. Sintfle Number, ! ) U. S. and Canadas. To all other couii- 



locts. Additions to clubs may be mode f I'IBI,ishkd SEMi-MONTlil.y BY ; tries of the Universal Postal Union, IKe 



: club rates. Above are all to be sent ! » t •i}f\f\rr< att^t^t-vt \ /~vttt/'\ I peryG»r extra. To all countries not i-f 



; POSTOFKICK. 



j A. I. ROOT, MEDINA,OIIIO. Ifhet'p. u.' 



42c per year extra. 



CAN BEES BE MADE TO HIBERNATE ? ! 



now MUCH COM), AND HOW I.ONC, WII.I. IU:KS 

 STAND IT AND NOT FREEZK/ 



T|p MONG my earliest recollections I remember 

 J[l>i of jroinjr throug-h a piece of wootUaiid at the 

 J^' close of a sunshiny day in March, anti 

 ■^^^ there flnding dead bees (as I supposed) on j 



the snow. A liind of pity came over me for 

 the poor little thing's, so I picked one up and looked j 

 iit it, when a new thought came over me, which 

 was that I would carry some of them home and 

 show them to father, as he had been a keeper of i 

 hees, although he had none at this time. It so hap- 

 pened that I had a small box in my vest pocket, and 

 in thinking- how I could carry them home I broug:ht 

 into retiuisition this bo.x. After puttiiif^ 15 or 20 of , 

 the dead bees in the bo.v I put on the cover and 

 slipped it in my pocket, not thinking of it ag-ain un- | 

 til all were gathered around the fireside at night. : 

 1 now thought of it, telling- father how I had picked 

 up the dead bees in the woods; and upon taking- the • 

 box from ray pocket we were all greatly astonished 

 to hear a loud humming, with much commotion go- 

 ing on inside; for the warmth of my body had 

 brought my dead bees to life. Father said he be- j 

 lieved he had heard of bees being chilled and after- 

 ward reviving- wlien the sun warmed them up, and 

 proposed that I feed them some honey, which we 

 chanced to have in the house. That night, boy 

 fashion, I planned out how I could get a swarm of 

 bees out of those dead bees on the snow, for there 

 was a lot of them. 



The next morning, much to my sorrow I found it 

 raining when I awoke. This rain, I thought, would 

 surely spoil my bees in the woods, and my vision of 



a swarm of bees began to look dim to what it did 

 the night before. About 10 A. m. it stopped raining, 

 and I started out with a box for the bees, although 

 I hardly exi)ected I could revive the wet dead 

 things. Arriving where they were I took one in 

 my hand and breathed on it a few times, when, to 

 my great satisfaction, it began to move. I now- 

 picked up my box full, leaving a few still on the 

 snow. These all revived, and were put with the 

 rest. The next day I chanced that way again, and 

 tried to revive some cf those left on the snow, but 

 failed entirely, although I carried quite a number 

 in my pocket all day. The weather had been freez- 

 ing cold for six or eight hours before mj- last trial, 

 and I laid it to this, why I could not revive the last. 



1 could tell the juveniles how I fed them, and 

 worked for my bees to grow into a swarm, until one 

 by one they died; and how a neighbor found a bee- 

 tree near where I found those bees, if such were 

 the object of this article; but as the heading will 

 show, I start^-d out to tell you something regarding 

 the hibernation of bees; and the reason 1 spoke of 

 this incident at all was that these chilled bees which 

 I picked up were hibernating more really than 

 those of friend Clarke have. been during the past 

 winter, fixed upon his "tree-trunk" principle. 



Time passed on. and I became the possessor of 

 not only one colony of bees (as I so desired to in 

 those early days), but of so many I could count them 

 by scores. During the past 16 years I have many 

 times revived chilled bees, but could never revive 

 a bee after it had been frozen, although friend 

 Root tells us on page 127 they can be revived after 

 being exposed to a zero temperature, or something 

 of like import. I have read somewhere that as 

 soon as the juice inside the bee becomes frozen, the 



