December, 1912. 



359 



^^^^[American Hee Journal 



taken from another strong colony, and 

 given caged to the queenless one. Then 

 the two colonies were made to ex- 

 change places. The lield-bees that had 

 belonged to the queen, upon returning 

 to their old location, found their own 

 queen caged, and, of course, were kind 

 to her. In the other hive all the home- 

 bees being young and freshly made 

 queenless, a queen-cell was readily 

 accepted. 



Care of Bee.s iu Cellar 



If bees are abundantly supplied with 

 good honey, and are in the right kind 

 of a cellar, they should need very little 

 attention throughout the winter. Not 

 every cellar, however, is a perfect cel- 

 lar for wintering bees, and it should be 

 the care of the bee-keeper to do the 

 best he can to make up for all deficien- 

 cies. 



First in importance is pure air. Try 

 to have the air in the cellar as nearly 

 as possible like the air outdoors. If 

 you can do no better, open up at night 

 some door, window, or other opening 

 whenever this can be done without 

 making the cellar too cool. Better the 

 air too cool than too foul. 



As to temperature, it is generally be- 

 lieved that at a temperature of about 45 

 degrees bees are most nearly in a dor- 

 mant condition, and so will consume 

 less stores, and the less stores they 

 consume the longer they can stand 

 confinement. But thermometers are 

 not always correct, and it will be well 

 for you to see at what degree by yoitr 

 thermomcler bees will be most quiet, 

 and then try to keep the cellar at that 

 temperature. 



Some have reported success in cel- 

 lars much colder. And if the air is as 

 pure as it is outdoors, why should not 

 bees stand as much cold as outdoors ? 

 All the same, no matter how well bees 

 may winter, say in temperature of 38 

 degrees, would they not winter at least 

 a little better in a temperature that 

 would require consumption of less 

 stores ? 



On the other hand, it is becoming a 

 common thing to have furnaces in cel- 

 lars, making it impossible in some 

 cases to keep the temperature down as 

 low as 45 degrees. Again it is true 

 that the bees will stand the change of 

 temperature, if only the air is kept pure. 

 In the cellar of the writer it is nothing 

 unusual for the temperature to be 5o 

 degrees or higher. But doors or win- 

 dows are kept open enough so the air 

 is much the same as outdoors. 



The cellar should be kept dark, but 

 again the matter of pure air makes a 

 difference. Let the air become foul. 



and then open a door or window, let- 

 ting in air and light in the middle of 

 the day, and thousands of bees will fly 

 out of the cellar and be lost. But open 

 the door in the evening as soon as it 

 becomes dark, and in the morning 

 when the air has become pure, the light 

 may shine brightly into the cellar with- 

 out disturbing the bees for some time. 

 If the bees are in an inner room, the 

 door from this inner to the outer room 

 may generally be kept open all the time, 

 and the outer door may often be kept 

 open all day long without doing any 

 harm, for the light in the inner room 

 will not be very strong. The outer 

 door may be kept more or less open, 

 according to the needs of the case. 



Mice should be poisoned, or trapped, 

 or both. Persistent trapping with 

 the little traps that can be had for 2 

 or 3 cents each will keep the trouble 

 down to a minimum. Some screen 

 the entrances to the hives with coarse 

 wire-cloth, three meshes to the inch. 

 If a mouse should thus be fastened into 

 a hive, it is better to have one hive dis- 

 turbed than several. 



Bees will of course die through the 

 winter, and more or less dead bees 

 will be on the cellar floor. The begin- 

 ner may be tempted to close the en- 

 trance with wire-cloth finer than three 



meshes to the inch, so that neither 

 mice nor bees can pass through. Don't 

 think of such a thing. While that may 

 keep the floor of the cellar clean, it is 

 much more important for the health of 

 the bees that the floor of the hive be 

 kept clean. Let the dead bees fall upon 

 the floor, and then sweep up the floor. 

 It may not need sweeping possibly for 

 the first two months, but later it will 

 need sweeping every two weeks. It 

 may or may not be advisable to clean 

 out occasionally the dead bees that are 

 on the bottom-board, according as they 

 do or do not accumulate there. 



In the Bee-Keepers' Review for Sep- 

 tember, Elmer Hutchinson states that 

 he has wintered bees in a very dry cel- 

 lar with a temperature of 34 degrees 

 during almost the entire winter. Com- 

 menting upon it, the editor of Glean- 

 ings in Bee Culture states that in their 

 experience a temperature of 34 degrees, 

 in a bee-cellar, if long continued, has 

 proven disastrous, and he asks whether 

 the thermometer had been tested for 

 correctness ? There is another ques- 

 tion which might be asked: In what 

 part of the cellar was the thermometer 

 kept 1 There is quite a difference in 

 temperature in different parts of a cel- 

 lar where many bees are kept, because 

 their own warmth affects the tempera- 

 ture materially. 



Miscellaneous ^ News Items 



More About European Foul Brood. — 



The following was included in a letter 

 recently received from Morley Pettit, 

 Provincial Apiarist of Ontario, Can. : 



" I find the article by Dr. Miller, on a 

 question of smells, page 324, and would 

 like to say a few words in reply to his 

 question. The difference between Dr. 

 Phillips and myself, which is a differ- 

 ence of experience rather than a dif- 

 ference of opinion, has often puzzled 

 me. I have not yet had the opportunity 

 of seeing European foul brood in an 

 apiary across the line, but in every 

 case which I have seen here, especially 

 where it is new territory, there is 

 always the pronounced odor which can 

 be compared to nothing better perhaps 

 than decayed fish. I well remember in 

 1!H)!1, when I was sent into Northum- 

 berland county to investigate the out- 

 break there, going with the local in- 

 spector, Mr. Warrington Scott Wooler, 

 to a number of apiaries that were 

 badly diseased. 



" It was pitiful to see many apiaries 

 where 30, 40, 00, and 60 hives were sit- 

 ting out with scarcely any live bees 

 left in them, and that decayed, offensive 

 condition of the combs in every one. 

 The weather was very warm and sultry, 

 as it often is in June and on entering 



the apiary the odor could be noticed 

 quite distinctly in any part of the yard 

 before any hives were opened. On lift- 

 ing out the combs and holding them up 

 for examination, it was almost sicken- 

 ing. The outward symptoms, apparent 

 to the eye, as described in Dr. Phillips' 

 bulletin, were all practically the same, 

 and why there should be this difference 

 in the odor has not been explained to 

 my satisfaction. 



"I am sending a copy of this letter 

 to Dr. Phillips, to see if he has any- 

 thing further to suggest." 



Since the above was put in type, the 

 Editor has paid a visit to the Provincial 

 Congress of Apiarists of Ontario, and 

 there saw a sample of European foul 

 brood in a not very advanced stage. 

 -■Mthough the odor was characteristic 

 and not at all similar to that of .Ameri- 

 can foul brood, which we all agree re- 

 sembles very much that of a joiner's 

 glue pot, yet it was not offensive 

 enough to be conspicuous. The stage 

 of the disease mentioned above by Mr. 

 Pettit, where " from 30 to (iO hives were 

 exposed to sultry weather, with scarcely 

 any live bees left in them," is sufficient 

 to explain the very unpleasant effect 

 upon the nostrils, and after once get- 

 ting a puff of this stench, one would 



