42 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 



have had all of this trouble, our pets are not nearly 

 as well oil as they would have been had the temper- 

 ature kept evenly at 45°. Of course, where one has 

 no other place in which to winter bees, he must do 

 the best he can with what he has got; but the point 

 which 1 object to is, the recommending of any 

 thing which requires so much fussing and anxiety 

 of thought, above something which requires noth- 

 ing of the kind, and over one, which, after a 

 thorough trial by even the most prejudiced, would 

 be recommended as much superior to the old way. 



At Query 94, T)adant & Son "hit the nail on the 

 head " when they say there is no difference, if the 

 temperature can be kept the same; and George 

 Grimm certainly misses it where he says, "The 

 matter of living-rooms above cuts no figure." For 

 many years before I moved to where I now live, I 

 wintered my bees in the cellar under the house we 

 lived in; and during nearly every one of these win- 

 ters there would come times when I had to build a 

 tire in this cellar to keep it warm enough, or else 

 open the doors at night, or carry in snow or ice, or 

 both to keep it cool enough. Several times it kept 

 so warm that there was no snow or ice to be had, 

 and the outside air during the night was warmer 

 than the air in the cellar; then I had such a state 

 of affairs as friend A. I. Root has often feared he 

 might have were he to try cellar wintering— a time 

 which "tried men's souls;" or, in other words, a 

 time when there was a general " roaring," such as 

 Query No. 95 wants to know about. At such times 

 Query 96 is very pertinent; for in a perfectly dark 

 cellar is our only salvation. L. C. Hoot says, in an- 

 swer to No. 95, " The room should be so arranged 

 and managed as to avoid these causes of uneasi- 

 ness." If I were back to where I should be obliged 

 to winter bees in that cellar again, I would willing- 

 ly give him $500 to tell me how to so arrange and 

 manage, in such times as spoken of above; for can- 

 didly I do not know how to do it. Since I built the 

 special repository which I now have, which was 

 fully described and illustrated in Gleanings of 

 last year, the temperature inside, while the bees 

 were in it, has never been lower than 40° nor higher 

 than 48, with the exception of the winter when I 

 kept the temperature up with, the oil-stove, which 

 resulted in almost a total loss, as most of the read- 

 ers of Gleanings will remember; and since I shut 

 off all ventilation, which Prof. Cook and others 

 think necessary, as their reply to these queries 

 would denote, the temperature has not been lower 

 than 43° or above 46°. A properly constructed un- 

 derground cellar, with no building above it, is self- 

 regulating, and of itself sufficient to carry bees 

 safely through the winter, no matter how much 

 the temperature may change outside; and, if I am 

 correct in my opinion, it will be the chief way of 

 wintering bees in the near future. 

 Borodino, N. Y., Jan. 1, 4889. G. M. Doolittle. 



Friend Doolittle, I am very much obliged 

 to you for having contrasted these two 

 forms of wintering-repositories. As Cap- 

 tain Hetherington, P. H. Elwood, and oth- 

 ers in their neighborhood, have made some 

 careful and extensive outdoor arrangements 

 for wintering bees, I should be glad to know 

 if their decision corroborates this. If I had 

 a sandy or gravelly side hill, I would start 

 forthwith— yes. right in the month of Jan- 

 uary, to make such a cave as you speak of, 

 for various purposes. I am a little surpris- 



ed, however, that you maintain a tempera- 

 ture as low as from 43 to 46. The tempera- 

 ture of the Manitou cavern, away up on the 

 top of the mountain, in the neighborhood of 

 Pike's Peak, is 52 , winter and summer. I 

 am going to have a lot to say about it before 

 I get through with my Notes of Travel. 

 Mammoth Cave, in Kentucky, is 56 . Per- 

 haps you have told us the temperature of 

 your cave in the summer time. If so, I 

 have forgotten it. But I do not see how it 

 can be below 50 , unless the outside temper- 

 ature of the winters keeps it down. Can we 

 have some reports from others who have 

 caves and similar places? Would it do to 

 shut up a cellar tight, in a damp clay soil? 



GLASS SECTIONS. 



SOMETHING EROM ONE OF THE FRIENDS ACROSS 

 THE WATER. 



a EAR MR. ROOT:— Will you kindly say if you 

 noticed in an article in the British Bee Jour- 

 nal of the issue of Oct. 4, 1888, my remarks 

 on glass sections. I shall be glad to hear 

 what you and the Americans think of these. 

 I might also say 1 have had some glass sections 

 made from round honey-bottles. 1 took my glass- 

 cutter and cut slices off the bottles, as shown in 

 the accompanying sketch. It was difficult to cut 

 the bottles, but I suc- 

 ceeded in making suf- 

 ficient to try what I 

 wanted. The black 

 lines will show where 

 the cutter was applied. 

 1 took two slices for 

 each section, placed a 

 small sheet of wax 

 foundation between 

 these slices, and, behold, 

 the foundation was 

 firmly fixed in a mo- 

 ment! Next each sec- 

 tion was placed in a 

 frame very similar to 

 what was illustrated in 

 Gleanings about six 

 or eight weeks ago, and 

 shown again herewith. 

 I use Heddon's wide 

 frames, and I had a 

 frame made to hold four glass sections. These sec- 

 tions looked lovely. I had them beautifully sealed 

 over— not a single " pop-hole " in any of them. The 

 above block was made so that it could be pushed 

 into one of Heddon's frames. Was it not curious, 

 that a similar idea should occur about the same 

 time to your correspondent Rambler and myself? 

 He used strips of wood, or shavings, instead of glass 

 rings. I think glass cells might be cheaply cast or 

 manufactured, and they would look very attractive. 

 I hope you will not say there is nothing like leather; 

 wood sections are best because, etc. To clean the 

 glass cells or rims, simply boil them— they may be 

 used over and over again. 



LANGSTROTH'S PICTURE. 



Please do not tell Rev. Mr. Langstroth that I say 

 the portrait on page 843 is one of afine-lookingman. 

 I am sure America should be proud of the looks 



HOW TO MAKE GL \SS 



SECTIONS. 



