788 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



sets in they will form themselves into a 

 compact cluster near the center of the 

 hive. They do this in order to keep 

 themselves warm. One bee alone, es- 

 pecially if its honey-sac be empty, will 

 perish in tlm cold in a short time, while 

 a cluster of bees with well-filled honey- 

 sacs can resist the hurtful influences of 

 intensely cold weather. By uniting in a 

 cluster they build around themselves a 

 living wall, as it were, which is a non- 

 conductor of heat, and thus are enabled 

 to confine the combined heat of their 

 bodies in a small space. Should one 

 thrust a thermometer into the center of 

 a cluster of bees in the winter, he would, 

 no doubt, be surprised to find how warm 

 they can keep themselves, if he had 

 never before tried the experiment. 



When the bees on the outside of the 

 cluster have endured the cold as long as 

 they can, they step aside and pass into 

 the center of the cluster, where it is 

 always warm, and other bees take their 

 places in this living wall of protection ; 

 and thus the cluster remains perfect as 

 long as the cold weather lasts. 



Now, this cluster, as a whole, can 

 move only one way, and that is in the 

 direction in which heat always moves — 

 upwards — as stated before. It can fol- 

 low the line of heat, but it cannot move 

 sidewise from one frame to another, or 

 lengthwise on the frames. If one will 

 think for a moment how most modern 

 hives are constructed, and how shallow 

 the frames are, he will readily under- 

 stand why it is that so many colonies of 

 bees die in the winter with " plenty of 

 honey in the hive." 



In the months of January and Feb- 

 ruary, even in this climate, there is gen- 

 erally a long spell of very cold weather. 

 During this time the cluster is moving 

 toward the tops of the frames, consum- 

 ing as it goes, all of the honey in the 

 frames immediately above it. The cold 

 weather continuing, it finally reaches 

 the top of the frames, and can go no 

 farther in this direction. It cannot dis- 

 band and move over to other frames, 

 neither can it move lengthwise on the 

 frames it now occupies. What is the re- 

 sult? Having consumed all of the food 

 in their honey-sacs, and not being able 

 to reach any more, nor live on wood, the 

 bees die of starvation. Had the weather 

 turned warm for a few days, so the clus- 

 ter could have broken up and the bees 

 "taken a flight," they then would have 

 formed in another locality on the frames, 

 or else would have carried sufficient food 

 into the combs where they had clustered 

 before to carry them over another cold 

 spell of reasonable length. 



We cannot, however, depend on the 

 warm weather to come at the right time, 

 and so we must devise some method by 

 which we can guard against such mis- 

 haps as mentioned above, and thus be 

 able to take our busy little workers 

 safely through the winter, and keep 

 them strong and healthy, so they will be 

 ready for brood-rearing in the spring. 



It is very important that bees be kept 

 as quiet as possible after they cease 

 work in the fall. A worker-bee has a 

 very delicate nervous organization, and 

 therefore wears herself out in a short 

 time when she is actually engaged in 

 storing honey. If she is to live during 

 the winter and long enough in the spring 

 to rear bees to take her place, she must 

 be excited to as little activity as possible 

 after her honey-gathering ceases. It is 

 not only necessary, then, to feed the 

 bees so that the food will be above the 

 cluster, but it is also important to feed 

 them so they will be disturbed as little 

 as possible. I will now give a method 

 of preparing them for winter which I 

 think fully meets both conditions. 



A colony of bees will live through the 

 winter and keep healthy if they have 

 nothing but dry sugar to eat, provided 

 the sugar be so placed that they can 

 always reach it without breaking the 

 cluster. Dry sugar, however, cannot be 

 manipulated in a way to guarantee this 

 condition of things. I, therefore, secure 

 the best quality of granulated sugar, and 

 make it into solid cakes similar to those 

 of maple sugar which we find for sale in 

 the stores. To prepare these sugar 

 cakes, the granulated sugar should be 

 put into a vessel with a very small 

 quantity of boiling water — not more 

 than one pint of water to five pounds of 

 sugar — and the sugar thoroughly melted. 

 Be careful not to let it burn. After the 

 sugar is melted, let the syrup boil until 

 it will harden into a solid cake. One 

 can ascertain when it has boiled enough 

 by dropping a little of it in cold water. 

 After it has boiled so it will thoroughly 

 harden, pour it out into shallow pans, 

 making it into cakes six or eight inches 

 long, an inch and a half thick, and wide 

 enough to make the cake weigh eight or 

 ten pounds. When the cakes are thor- 

 oughly cold and hardened, they are 

 ready for use. 



It is not necessary to put acid or any- 

 thing of that kind in the syrup to keep 

 it from granulating, as the bees can eat 

 it just as well when it Is granulated as 

 when it is not. 



Having prepared your cakes of sugar 

 in this way, remove the top of the hive 

 and the covering to the frames, and lay 



