J be (§ee-Keepeps' JAeviecu' 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 

 Devoted to tlqe Iqterests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR, 

 W. Z. HUTCHISON, Editor and Proprietor, 



VOL VIN, FLINT, MICHIGAN., APRIL, 10. 1895. NO. 4. 



Work at IVticliigaii's 



Experimental 



^piarv. 



B. L. TAYIiOK, APIABIST. 

 WINTER EXPERIMENTS. 



I N order to as- 

 1 sist in a thor- 

 ough under- 

 standing of the 

 ex peri ments 

 which have been 

 undertaken dur- 

 ing the present 

 winter, I here 

 give first a de- 

 scription of the 

 cellar used for 

 holding the bees 

 during the winter months. I have a honey- 

 house and shop thirty feet square, under the 

 whole of which is a cellar in earth which is 

 called clay loam. This cellar is flanked on 

 the west by a barn cellar from which it is 

 separated by a stone wall laid in mortar the 

 same as the wall which incloses it on the 

 other side and is protected overhead by a 

 floor and a ceiling partially filled in between 

 with sawdust. The north half of this is con- 

 verted into a receptacle for the bees by the 

 erection of a double wall packed with saw- 

 dust midway east and west so as to cut it off 

 completely from the south half. 



Upon the outside the cellar is banked up 

 to the sill with earth except where there is a 

 window on the north side and an outside 

 door at the north-east corner. This door 

 opens out directly into the apiary. 



This protection upon the south and west 

 from the cold south-west winds of winter 

 and from the sun of early spring, gives the 

 cellar a temperature of remarkable even- 

 ness. This temperature is little affected by 

 outside influences, being controlled princi- 

 pally by the number of colonies which the 

 cellar contains at any given time. When it 

 contained about two hundred and forty col- 

 onies, the greatest number wintered in it at 

 one time, with protection given to the out- 

 side door by a packing of leaves, the tem- 

 perature remained throughout the winter at 

 about 50° with but little variation > ; during 

 the past winter it has contained about one 

 hundred and fifty colonies and the temper- 

 ature has remained most of the time at from 

 43° to 4,5°. During times of comparative 

 high temperature outside when the temper- 

 ature of the cellar was inclined to rise, the 

 outside door was placed ajar during the 

 night and on several occasions, in conse- 

 quence of this, the temperature in the morn- 

 ing was found even below 40°, but in the 

 course of two or three days the normal tem- 

 perature would be again reached. Whether 

 this occasional admission of an abundance 

 of cooler fresh air was beneficial or detri- 

 mental, I cannot say, but to all appearance 

 it exerted a salutary influence on the bees as 



