338 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL.. 



average colonies, occurs during May and June. The diseased bees are thrown out 

 gradually, occasionally in large quantities, and the process is kept up as long as 

 other bees show signs of the disease. 



During the summer bees wear out too rapidly to have time to show much of the 

 sickness ; young bees come in rapidly, and as the season advances less and less dis- 

 eased bees are seen, until when the winter comes, none but apparently healthy bees 

 are in the apiary. 



By that time the inexperienced (?) apiarist thinks that the disease had run out 

 of itself, or if he has applied salt or sulphur, or something else, he imagines that he 

 has found a sure cure, and immediately writes so to some bee-paper. But, alas, for 

 his hopes — the following spring black, shiny bees will be as numerous as the pre- 

 ceding years. 



In a recent article in Oleanings, Dr. Brown, of Georgia, describes some disease 

 of bees that he thinks caused by poisonous honey from the yellow jasmine. Accord- 

 ing to his description, his bees must have the bee-paralysis ; the fact that the yellow 

 jasmine is in bloom at the time the bee-paralysis is most shown, does not prove that 

 the poisonous (?) honey is the cause of it. We have no yellow jasmine here, and 

 yet our bees show the same symptoms as his do. 



Knoxville, Tenn., Aug. 24. 



P. S. — In my article on page 240, I said that bee-paralysis has always existed 

 in all the apiaries. I meant to say, all the apiaries of this part of Tennessee. 



* 



I^IIVXHRII^G BHKS OUT-DOORS. 



BY CHAS. DADANT. 



A good wintering of bees is the stumbling-block of bee-culture in the northern 

 and central States of America. There are so many cases of failure that the prob- 

 lem of a successful wintering of bees cannot be too thoroughly studied. The main 

 causes of such failures are : 



1. A population too weak to maintain a sufficient degree of heat in the hive. 



2. A quantity of food inadequate with the needs of the colony during the winter 

 months. 



3. Food of so poor a quality that bees living on it cannot remain in good health. 



4. A hive which cannot sufficiently protect bees against the cold of winter. 



5. A hive so close that the dampness produced by their breathing wets the bees, 

 their comb, and their food. 



6. A sequestration of bees, too long protected to allow them to get rid of their 

 feces before they become sick with diarrhea. 



To overcome these difficulties bee-keepers have tried several ways of wintering 

 bees : 



First. On the summer stands. Second. In rooms above gfound. Third. In 

 silos. Fourth. In cellars. We will examine successively all these means. 



The first requisite to succeed in wintering bees on the summer stands is a large 

 population ; a part of it ought to be young bees. A large population maintains 

 easily the heat inside the hive, and the bees can easily pass from an emptied comb 

 to another containing honey. Besides, as the outside of tho hive is kept warm, the 

 bees do not need to eat so much to maintain the indispensable heat, and they can 

 more easily bear a longer seclusion, since their intestines are not so much loaded 

 with feces. 



A colony containing a quantity of young bees succeeds better in its wintering 



