A MONTHLY JOURNAL 

 Devoted to i\\e Interests of Hoqey Producers. 



$L00 A YEAR. 

 W. Z. HOTCHINSON, Editor and Proprietor. 



VOL. VIIL FLINT, MICHIGAN, MAY, 10. 1895. NO. 5. 



Work at IVIioliigaii's 



Experimental 



^piarv. 



B. L. TAYLOB, APIABIST. 

 WINTEB EXPEKIMENTS. 



mHE last men- 

 T" t i o n e d ex- 

 periment is of 

 more than ordi- 

 nary interest and 

 impo r tan ce on 

 account of the 

 fact that the 

 ablest and most 

 experienced bee- 

 keepers are divi- 

 ded in their opin- 

 ions as to the 

 chief cause of the dysenteric ailment brought 

 on during confinement in winter ; one party 

 attributing it to improper food and another 

 to super-abundant moisture. The colonies 

 selected for the experiment were taken in- 

 differently from the apiary and did not dif- 

 fer greatly from the others either in quality 

 of their stores or in their numercial strength 

 except that it would have been difficult to 

 have found another colony in the apiary as 

 weak as No. 1, unless it might be among the 

 four or five abnormal colonies. 



I have already alluded to the use of a 

 hygrometer in the bee cellar during the win- 

 ter to determine the degree of moisture in 



the air, and it should be said in addition that 

 it showed almost uniformly a difference of 

 one- half a degree between the dry bulb and 

 the wet bulb at a temperature of 43° to 45° 

 which was generally that of the cellar, indi- 

 cating that the percentage of saturation was 

 about 9(3, lacking only about four per cent, 

 of complete saturation. In the case of the 

 colonies under consideration no effort was 

 made to determine the degree of saturation 

 of the air immediately surrounding them by 

 the use of an instrument, the advisability of 

 that course not having been suggested early 

 enough to allow suitable arrangements to be 

 made for that purpose, but all the indica- 

 tions were that the saturation of the air was 

 complete. The cover used for the top hive 

 was a flat board several inches wider and 

 onger than the hives, purposely chosen of 

 that size that it might serve to hold the wet 

 sheet free from the hives. It was raised a 

 little from the hive by the insertion of thin 

 strips and it was found on the removal of 

 the sheet on the 8th of April, to he loaded as 

 heavily as possible on its under side with 

 great drops of water which fairly poured off 

 when one edge of the cover was raised a lit- 

 tle. The covers of No. 3 and No. 5, which 

 were also raised from the hives to give up- 

 ward ventilation were in like manner loaded 

 with water, to a equal extent, indeed, with 

 those of Nos. 2 and 4 which covered their 

 hives tightly so as to prevent all upward ven- 

 tilation. The upper surface of the cover to 

 No. .5 was partly covered with a jelly like 

 substance having the appearance of the 



