THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



119 



perfect quietude. To these may be 

 added a tliird condition; viz., a state 

 of coma or stupor produced l)y cold. ( 

 wish to malie a few remarks on eacli 

 of tliese conditions, and their relation 

 to wintering. 



First, tlieii, the fully-animated : 

 Bees have been known to winter well 

 in this condition, but usually it is dis- 

 astrous, as in the case of Mr. Doolit- 

 tle's bees during the winter of 1SS3-84. 

 It is, in fact, an stbnonnal condition in 

 this northern climate; hence, it has 

 no bearing upon the suliject in hand. 



Second, the senii-hibernatious, or 

 state of perfect quietude, otolleddon ; 

 or of hiliernation, « id Clarke. I tliink 

 that all bee-keepers are agreed that 

 this is the natural condition of bees 

 during winter, or at any other time of 

 the year when they are" not working. 

 Mr. Clarke does not «o((i claim to have 

 discovered that bees really hibernate. 

 Hibernation is the word he uses to 

 represent that death-like silence which 

 all writers agree to be the natural 

 state instinctively assumed by the 

 bees when all the requirements are 

 met for their perfect wintering, being 

 an effect of wintering well, not the 

 cause. There is no theory at all about 

 this. Now, what is that state V In 

 almost every way it resembles human 

 sleep. Thebees are very quiet, i. e. at 

 rest ; yet the slightest tap will gener- 

 ally awaken them, and put every bee 

 on its guard, but if then left alone, 

 they quickly become quiet again. 1 

 say they generally awaken with a slight 

 tap; sometimes, of course, it would 

 take what some would call a pretty 

 bard knock, to arouse them. That is 

 only the degree of lethargy. There 

 are some people who sleep so lightly 

 that the slightest noise will awaken 

 them ; others will not be disturbed by 

 loud noises, and in some cases, hardly 

 by being shaken. 



What is hibernation V It is gener- 

 ally conceded to be a state of complete 

 torpor, in which nearly all cold-blooded 

 animals, and many warm-blooded ones 

 pass the winter. As bees do not pass 

 into this state during winter (and 

 live), as shown by many writers, hi- 

 bernation is manifestly an incorrect 

 term by which to describe the quies- 

 cent state resembling hibernation. I 

 think that it is an empty honor to be 

 the first to drag a new term into our 

 already voluminous vocabulary .which, 

 however, does not mean what it is 

 meant to express^ and should there- 

 fore be dropped at once, on the princi- 

 ple of " calling things by their right 

 names." 



I will now pass to the third condi- 

 tion of bees, which is a ^tate of coma 

 or stupor produced by cold ; not be- 

 cause it has anything to do with win- 

 tering bees, but because it resembles 

 hibernation so much in every way; 

 This is the condition mentioned by 

 Mr. Wm. Malone, on page 779, of the 

 Bee Journ.'^l for 18S4, and noticed 

 more or less by all bee-keepers. Mr. 

 Malone, in the above-mentioned arti- 

 cle, describes it so fully that there is 

 no use in going over the same ground 

 again. However, I do not know that 

 an exact limit may be placed on the 

 time that bees would live in this state, 

 nor the degree of cold at which death 



would supervene. It resembles in 

 many ways the comatose state of the 

 human species, only that with the lat- 

 ter it is seldom produced by cold, but 

 only by cold, with bees, so far as yet 

 known. When warmed again the bees 

 are as sprightly as ever. 



I imagine that I now hear Mr. 

 Clarke exclaim, "That is just my 

 theory. When the weather is cold the 

 bees become torpid, but when a warm 

 spell comes, they revive, and have a 

 chance to partake of food." Not so 

 fast ! A chilled bee (or bees), requires 

 the genial heat of the sun, or of a 

 cluster of bees, or at least 45^ Fahr., 

 probably more, to revive it. ilow often 

 does any one suppose that tliat tem- 

 perature in the shade is reached dur- 

 ing some winters V Probably not for 

 months together. Therefore, during 

 all ordinary winters, if the bees once 

 entered this torpid condition, they 

 would never revive. 



Hence, I think that as "hiberna- 

 tion " is plainly shown to be a uiisoo- 

 mer, as applied to bees, and useful 

 only to confuse begiiniers, some other 

 appellation (if any is needed) should 

 be given to that quiescent state in 

 which bees winter tlie best. 



Tamworth.cx Out. 



For the American B*;e Journal, 



The Season of 1884. 



A. A. FRADENBURG. 



In the spring of 1884 I had 58 colo- 

 nies of bees, and of those about one- 

 half should properly be classed as 

 nuclei. Apple bloom was abundant, 

 and they secured some surplus from 

 black locust. White clover promised 

 well, and every colony was storing 

 surplus when dry weather cut it off' 

 about as suddenly as though all the 

 clover had been mowed down in a 

 day, and the honey crop was ended. 

 By June 20, I had 200 pounds of comb 

 honey and 500 pounds of extracted. 



From my .58 colonies I obtained only 

 one natural swarm, and as I desired 

 some increase, and reasoned that as 

 the weather was dry in early sum- 

 mer, we might reasonably expect wet 

 weather in the fall, so that the bees 

 might store enough for winter, I be- 

 gan to divide them in July and Au- 

 gust, and my plan was to take the 

 queen with a little less than half of 

 the brood, half of the bees, frames 

 and stores for the new colony, and 

 supply the old colony with a young 

 queen or queen-cell, and till both hives 

 with empty combs or foundation. 

 The bees just about " held their own " 

 during July, but August and Septem- 

 ber were such dry months that they 

 got scarcely a taste of anything, and 

 I found it practically impossible to do 

 any work with them, for one could 

 hardly raise the lid of a hive but 

 what robber bees would attack them. 



In September I started my apple- 

 evaporating business, and with apples 

 constantly more or less exposed, and 

 a cider mill in my yard, although it 

 was kept closed as much as possible, 

 and another open cider mill within 

 half a mile, I will not attempt to esti- 

 mate how many bees were killed. Late 



in November they were in what many 

 would call a deplorable condition. 

 Only a few colonies could be called 

 good, and those that were divided had 

 not increased any, but some had de- 

 creased. None had put any stores in 

 the empty combs given them, nor had 

 tliey drawn out their foundation ; .3 I 

 found queeiiless, and many liad not 2 

 months' stores on hand. I doubled 

 up some, and have today 63 colonies 

 on the summer stands, and 2f) in clus- 

 ter or tenement liives, as described 

 last June, without stores. 



The important question is, how 

 many of my bees will be alive on May 

 1, 1885 V I have one very favorable 

 condition, and that is, there is very 

 little, and in most cases not any, pollen 

 in the hives, as I do not think that 

 any was gathered after corn gave its 

 pollen ; and as I fully proved last win- 

 ter, to myself at least, that pollen is 

 the cause of bee-diarrhea, I have no 

 dread of that, unless it may be in a 

 few of the best colonies that may 

 have a little left from what was gath- 

 ered during the early part of the 

 season. 



Port Washington,©* O. 



For the American Bee JoumaL 



What the Times Demand. 



DR. W. G. PHELPS. 



It is currently reported in mercan- 

 tile circles that we have •' struck bot- 

 tom,"' i. e., reached the low-water 

 mark of our depressed times. Be this 

 false or true, one thing seems quite 

 apparent, the price of honey is not 

 likely to crawl up in the sainepropor- 

 tion as other farm commodities. May 

 I say farm commodities — because the 

 product of the apiary is more properly 

 classed under this head V The days 

 when honey must be termed a luxury, 

 are fast drawing to a close, and prob- 

 ably it is the very best thing that 

 could have happened to bee-keepers. 

 From swaddling clothes, our pursuit 

 has emerged into the full statue of a 

 vast industry. With this growth 

 naturally comes the light emanating 

 from tlie minds of hundreds of truth- 

 searchers and bright iuvestigators. 

 Thus " the way-faring man though a 

 fool," can scarcely err, if he diligently 

 reads the bee-literature of the day. 



Now, with all this, I repeat, comes 

 the reduced profit on the honey pro- 

 duction. Well, what are we going to 

 do about it ? To my mind, it resolves 

 itself down to this : We must scale 

 dovi'n tlie expenses in proportionate 

 ratio. With tlie babyhood of bee- 

 cultnre at an end, we must put aside 

 all the pleasant but costly fancies, 

 and let ourselves gracefully down to 

 the wants alike only practical and 

 necessary. Retrenchment must be 

 our motto. Theoretically, perhaps the 

 reader savs. No, practically. 



To illustrate this point I insist that 

 we shall reduce our labor, implements 

 and materials used in the apiary, down 

 to the minimum. My bee -feeder, 

 for instance, consists of an ordi- 

 nary frame, with a sheet of tin or thin 

 wood tacked to each side, and reach- 

 ing within an inch of the top-bar. A 



