340 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



But theinsufficientquantityof food is not the only want to be supplied. Its bad 

 quality should also be feared, for honey-dew, or dark honey from fall flowers, con- 

 tains too much indigestible matter. When bees, during winter, can fly out once or 

 twice per month, they have good opportunities to void their feces, and they can re- 

 main in good health with food of poor quality ; but when the weather remains cold 

 for six or seven consecutive weeks or more, bees fed on poor honey get the diarrhea, 

 soil the inside of their hive, and perish. 



To prevent these bad results, it is of good management to extract all the dark 

 honey, especially the honey-dew, and to replace ic with sugar syrup. This extract- 

 ing is especially indispensable when bees have stored fruit-luices. We once bought 

 the combs of some hundred colonies which had been unable to live in winter on 

 .these juices, which contains too much water and other matters, and too little sugar. 



When the cluster of bees is unable to produce the indispensable warmth during 

 the cold days of winter, they die, sometimes partially, and often wholly. To pre- 

 vent such accidents, some bee-keepers use chaff bives, or hives with doubl e walls, 

 the interior of which is filled with chaff, or with sawdust. 



Some other bee-keepers, for winter, lodge every one of their hives in a large 

 box furnished with a passage for bees. We have tried both systems. Bees, in such 

 hives, do not feel the cold days, but neither do they feel the warm days, and cannot 

 take advantage of the warmth to fly out and get rid of their feces. We prefer to 

 protect our hives during winter only, against the northern winds. Our method is to 

 heap around each hive a pack of dry leaves or straw, which is kept against the 

 hives, on three sides, with rope ladders, each of which is made with about twelve 

 half laths, leaving the front side of the hive free, so as not to prevent the sun from 

 warming the entrance during the few warm days of winter. 



By the way, I should warn the young bee-keepers against the idea of transport- 

 ing their hives to some warmer places just before winter. One of our neighbors has 

 lost nearly all his colonies in consequence of this unadvisable change of place. Most 

 of his colonies perished, and the others were greatly weakened, for the old bees, 

 accustomed to fly from the hives without looking backward, return to the old place 

 where they used to be, and are lost. 



I should add that, before winter, we remove the air-tight ceiling which covers 

 the top of the frames of our hives, and replace it with a straw-mat on which we 

 heap up dry leaves. The dampness produced by the bees passes through the mat 

 and condenses in the leaves, which are wet by spring, while the inside of the hive is 

 very dry. 



By the means expounded above, bees can sustain a long sequestration without 

 too much loss and suffering. — Prairie Farmer. Hamilton, 111. 



SEVERE DR.OXJXH— BEE-EXPERIENCES, ETC. 



13Y THEO. F. CRAIG. 



We have had some very dry weather for nearly a month, and everything is 

 nearly burned up. Pastures are almost entirely burned. White clover was nearly 

 a failure. Bees are gathering pollen now from pumpkin and cucumber vines and 

 corn-tassels. Most of the catnip is nearly dead. My bees have been working very 

 busily on it for some time. 



We have bad a very peculiar season. Our bees began carrying in pollen on 

 March 7th. Most of March was very warm and nice. Gooseberries, apple trees, 

 and other fruit trees, were nearly in full bloom when at the last of March we had a 

 cold spell which continued a week, and the mercury was down as low as 18*^ above 



