636 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



OCTOBKR, 1919 



HOW TO BUILD A BEE-CELLAR 



THE tendency 

 nowadays is 

 toward out- 

 door wintering; 

 and undoubted- 

 ly this plan is 

 better for most 

 localities where 

 there is more or 

 less open winter 



weather with the temperature above freez- 

 ing perhaps 10 days in every month during 

 the coldest months. Where it remains cold, 

 below freezing, seldom above, and at times 

 ranges around the zero mark, outdoor win- 

 tering can be practiced provided the bees 

 are warmly packed. And even where they 

 are unpacked, in localities where there are 

 deep snows thruout the coldest part of the 

 winter they will often winter well; but it -is 

 advisable to have some packing even then. 

 In localities where the temperature drops to 

 zero, or where it remains severely cold dur- 

 ing two or three months of the winter, in- 

 door wintering is preferable; but the cellars 

 must be properly constructed. Any indoor 

 wintering will be poor where ventilation is 

 poor. The temperature of a bee-cellar should 

 be between 40 and 55 degrees and ought 

 not to vary but a few degrees, preferably 

 not more than five. Any bee-repository 

 where the temperature can not be kept 

 above 40 degrees at the lowest and below 

 60 at the highest should not be used unless 

 there is plenty of ventilation. Often this 

 can not be secured without the use of an 

 electric fan, and that, of course, requires 

 electricity in the house or repository. 



As a general thing it may be said that a 

 bee-cellar under a house with a furnace to 

 heat the rooms above will often give good 

 results; but the bee-room should be entirely 

 shut off by a wall or partition from the fur- 

 nace-room. During a part of the winter the 

 door between may be left ajar for ventila- 

 tion, and for raising the temperature pro- 

 vided the mercury shows lower than 40 de- 

 grees. An under-a-house bee-repository is 

 usually not as good a place for wintering as 

 a specially constructed cellar — that is, one 

 wholly underground with a roof of not less 

 than three feet of earth, or a cellar in a 

 sidehill with at least four feet of embank- 

 ment on all exposed sides and on top. Where 

 the soil is pervious to water, the dirt on top 

 should be covered with a roof. Where it is 

 heavy yellow clay, well packed by a team 

 of horses driven over it, a roof may not be 

 needed. The point is, that the top covering 

 should be dry. If it becomes soggy and 

 damp from the fall rains, and then freezes, 

 it is almost worse than nothing. 



In our issue for September, 1918, pages 

 524 to 529 inclusive, I gave illustrations and 

 specifications of cellars that have given ex- 

 cellent results. All of them were construct- 

 ed according to the specifications given 

 above 



IVhen to Winter Indoors and When 

 Outdoors. Mother Earth as a Ra- 

 diator of Heat and Cold ^or Cellars 



By E. R. Root 



voir of heat. 

 Eelatively 

 speakin-g, the 

 earth is warm 

 if we get below 

 the frost - line. 

 An underground 

 bee - repository 

 should be long 

 and narrow in 

 order to get as much exposure of the ground 

 temperature as possible. A cellar built 

 square will have less wall and ceiling sur- 

 face than one that is oblong. The tempera- 

 ture of Mother Earth runs all the way from 

 40 to 55, depending on the locality. During 

 midwinter I have taken the temperature of 

 the water in wells in our locality, and I have 

 done this during summer. I have found 

 that the variation between winter and sum- 

 mer is very slight — not more than two de- 

 grees. But it should be remembered that 

 ordinary wells are open so that the surface 

 temperature may influence the water to a 

 slight degree. If the well is covered, the 

 variation between winter and summer tem- 

 perature of Mother Earth, or, more exactly 

 sjieaking, of the water in the well, will be 

 very slight. 



In view of the fact that the ground within 

 10 feet of the surface will remain almost 

 constant during winter (about 45 in our lo- 

 cality), the reader will see the great impor- 

 tance of having as much ground exposure or ■ 

 wall exposure as possible. The late G. M. 

 Doolittle, some 30 years ago, built a cellar 

 on exactly the lines that I am recommending 

 today. On page 528, September, 1918 Glean- 

 ings, was given a pen drawing of that cellar 

 in which Mr. Doolittle wintered his bees 

 uniformly for a long period of years. As 

 there shown, Mr. Doolittle long ago advo- 

 cated a cellar quite similar to the one here 

 described. He believed the cellar ceiling 

 should be below the frost-line, and that dur- 

 ing winter the temperature should be 45 de- 

 grees with a very moderate amount of ven- 

 tilation. The variation in temperature in 

 his cellar during the entire winter did not 

 exceed two degrees. The hole in his venti- 

 lator was 6x8. Back of his cellar he had 

 a fence built so that the driving snows 

 would cover the roof, acting as a warm 

 blanket. I do not remember the exact di- 

 mensions of this cellar; but it was not more 

 than 10 feet wide, I should say, and perhaps 

 50 feet long. This would give a large ex- 

 posure of wall tempered by the earth. Of 

 course, in the average soil a wall of some 

 kind would have practically the temperature 

 of the earth back of it. It costs more to 

 build an oblong cellar than a square one for 

 a given capacity of cubic feet; but the ad- 

 vantage of having a more uniform tempera- 

 ture will be apparent. 



Construction of Our Cellar. 

 Before building our cellar, we visited 



Dear old Mother Eartli is a great reser- some of the best bee-cellars in the country, 



