214 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



is the great point that too many of us have 

 overlooked. Forty rteKrees helow can he 

 endured for a sliort time, but 10= to 15' 

 above, will kill bees if continued, diarrhea 

 or no diarrhea. In this point I have been 

 in error. 



In this same yard stands 17 colonies 

 down lower and" warmer packed than tlie 

 49 just referred to, all being on full nat- 

 ural stores of honey and pollen, and in 

 the regular S-franie Langstrotli hives. All 

 are dead except 5, and probably not over 2 

 or 3 of these will survive. All of them had 

 diarrhea badly. Not until we could remove 

 bee-diarrhea, could we get a clear view of 

 any other causes which mislitresnit in the 

 death of our l)ees. 



Just to the left stands 73 colonies packed 

 just like tlie above 17 ; these had little 

 pollen in their combs, and stores of anii.x- 

 ture of sugar and honey, just the same as 

 the 10 referred to in the new, damp cellar. 

 They, like the 17, are low down, and were 

 pret'iy well covered with snow during the 

 severe weather. Of these 73 colonies, .5 

 are dead, and 3 more show signs of diar- 

 rhea. All the rest appear free from dis- 

 ease, and are (luiet and in good numbers. 



Of my out-apiary of 308 colonies, all 

 packed,' and all on natural stores, but 

 selected combs (as free from bee-bread as 

 we could conveniently choose), 1 think at 

 least one-halt will die, some of diarrhea, 

 and some of cold with no diarrhea. 



But let us go farther. Not satisfied witli 

 this, I began sending specimens of excreta 

 to Prof. Cook. The first specimen was 

 excreta from a radical case of diarrhea, 

 with bees all <lead, one among the eight 

 which died in tiie new cellar. I also en- 

 closed some pollen from the comb con- 

 tained in the frame from wiiose top-bar 1 

 took the excreta. The Professor answers 

 as follows : "I have subjected the pollen 

 to a very careful examination with a one- 

 sixth ul)ji:'Ctive. 1 find several kinds of 

 pdlli'ii ;,'raiiis, two of which are by far the 

 mo>t common. One is oval, rather pointed 

 at the ends with a longitudinal slit and 

 numerous projections ; the other is glob- 

 ular atid thickly set with projections much 

 like those in the other. I then studied 

 the excreta, and had some one else made 

 the change, I should have stoutly main- 

 tained that the objects were the same that 

 1 had just studied. The kinds of pollen 

 were exactly the same in style and mark- 

 ings. The pollen yon sent had been lib- 

 erally appropriated by tlie bees whose ex- 

 creta you sent." 



I will here state that no attempt at 

 breeding had been made by this colony. 

 1 will quote from another letter from Prof. 

 Cook : "I went to a neighbor's bees, all 

 of whii'h are dead, and I took three with 

 long, black, turgid bodies and dissected 

 out theii- alimentary canal as before. The 

 stomach and intestities were fairly burst- 

 ing with reiiletion ; -light pressure sent 

 the black, <idorous excreta flying. This 

 was almost one exclusive mass of pollen- 

 grains held in a watery mixture." 



I will now try to make clear the course 

 which will successfully winter our bees 

 with certainty, and preface it with some 

 observations and conclusions formed by 

 myself and others : 



1. Ventilation: Prof. A. J. Cook writes 

 to nie as lollows : "Bees certainly use 

 air all winter, if wintering well ; very 

 little will <lo— perhaps simply what is in 

 the hive, but unless they are kept very 

 quii t, llieyi\'ouid need more." Mr. Shirley 

 tells me of an instance of his observation, 

 where a former neighbor of his deter- 

 mined to smother some colonies of bees to 

 get rid of them and to get the hntiey. 

 With moist blue clay he hermelically 

 sealed the hives, and left them for so long 

 a time that he concluded that the bees 

 must be dead, but when the hive was 

 opened, to his chagrin, they were not 

 only alive, but showed no signs of any ill 



effects. This was in September. A re- 

 cent letter from Mr. Boomhower contains 

 the following words which exactly ac- 

 cords with my observation and experi- 

 ence : "All ventilators to bee-cellar« are 

 a damage and amount to nothing. This 

 has been proven to me over and over 

 again." 



When I built my new cellar I liad a 

 splendid site for the easy construction of 

 sub-earth ventilation, but as I had no 

 proof of any sort to warrant one dollar's 

 outlay in ventilators of any kind, I wanted 

 some, before goitig ahead. I decided to 

 seek it by corresponding with three men 

 whom I thought stood at the head in the 

 departments of science, theory and prac- 

 tical success as related to apiculture ; viz : 

 Prof. Cook, Mr. S. Cornell, and Mr. E, J. 

 Oatman. Each one of these gentlemen 

 gave what I fully believed to be nis honest 

 convictions upon the subject. After 

 weighing them carefully, I could find no 

 argument that caused me to prepare any 

 s\ste " of ventilation, and now I am very 

 glad that I saved all expense in that direc- 

 tion. I am firmly convinced that no ven- 

 tilation whatever is needed in a bee-cellar. 



3. Temperature is tlie point upon which 

 much hinges— the point where many of 

 us are still making fatal mistakes. Mr. 

 Boomhower says, "4.5= ;" and Mr. H. V. 

 Train says, "4.5°, and in the spring it may 

 run up to 00'." 



But I think that I bear some one say, 

 " Won't thev get uneasy and noisv when 

 the temperature is so "high?" Yes, but 

 yon hive been accustomed to associate 

 noise and uneasiness with disease, where 

 such disease was the cause of such noise 

 and uneasiness ; hut these efl;ects are 

 sometimes produced by other causes, and 

 in that case will not themselves become a 

 cause of tlie disease. 



lam now talking of just what I know 

 from my experiments this year. Mr. 

 Train avers that this high temperature, 

 later in the season, is accompanied with 

 breeding, in his location, and his only 

 trouble is that he has to give each colony 

 a tablespoonful of water daily, or they 

 will fly out of tlie hives (evidently in 

 search of it) and fall on the cellar bottom, 

 never to rise. He says that water pre- 

 vents all of this. Such testimony is evi- 

 dence enough for me. He fiirther says 

 tliat early breeding is objectionable, and 

 he wishes a way to avoid it and its con- 

 sequent labor. 



But where does the pollen theory stand 

 in this problem? Just here. As the 

 diarrhetic excreta is pollen, you may 

 know some neglect or violation of rules 

 which I shall lay down for successful 

 certainty in wintering, have caused the 

 bees to eat pollen. 



My opinion is, that when tlie tempera- 

 ture falls below a given point, in the hive, 

 tlie bees add to the heat-producing method 

 of consumption of oxygenized food, that 

 of producing heat by exercise, and this 

 exercise necessitates waste of tissue, and 

 this, the consumption of tissue-making 

 food (nitrogenous food), bee-bread. By 

 careful examination! have found that in 

 cases where I fed sugar syrup in dry, 

 clean combs, and left these colonies ex- 

 posed to the severe cold of tlie past win- 

 ter, that in every case where there was 

 just a cell of bee-bread here and there 

 which was overlooked or trusted with the 

 bees, they have emptied every one within 

 their reach. I assert the following, being 

 fully persuaded that future discoveries 

 will bear me out in the assertions : 



1. If coloiMes of bees are kept in a room 

 whose temiierature never goes below 45= 

 (in some cases I might put it lower), they 

 will not take bee-bread into their intes- 

 tines, whether they use it for making 

 chyme or not. 



3. If the honey which the hives contain 

 is of good wintering quality, that is, very 

 free from floating pollen, this will be all 



the precaution necessary to insure safety. 

 But, if on the otlier hand the oxygen 

 stores contain a goodly quantity of nitro- 

 gen, via floating pollen m the honey, the 

 bees may have the diarrhea, and this is 

 the reason that disease has been experi- 

 enced ill warm cellars. If the pollen is 

 diffused througliout the honey in consid- 

 erable quantity, it will get into the bees' 

 intestines and accumulate in largerquanti- 

 ties than the bees can hold, and their in- 

 stincts to do this will clause the disease. 



To all who believe the above, is it not 

 clear that just two conditions need close 

 watching and enthusiastic cherishing ; 

 viz : sugar syrup stores and a temperature 

 of from 40° to 45=? Sugar syrup is now 

 cheaper per pound than liquid honey, and 

 as a bee-food it goes farther, as it contains 

 heat-producing elements to a greater de- 

 gree than honey, and enough less nitrogen 

 than the best of honey, that I believe 

 the bees will come out in the spring in a 

 more vigorous condition than those win- 

 tered on honey and In a manner called 

 "successful." As I have before written, 

 I am satisfied that what is called " spring 

 dwindling" is contained diarrhea, and so 

 the less bees spot their surroundings on 

 their first flight, the more old bees may we 

 liave when we can boast of 40,000 new ones 

 per colony. I notice that as we move 

 northward we find the honey clearer, and 

 fecal accumulations less, according to the 

 duration of confinement. 



If pollen had not been a main factor in 

 the cause of fecal accumulations in bees, 

 the whole problem would long ago have 

 been settled. It is now practically settled 

 with me, even if some of the minor bear- 

 ings are still not quite clear. If I am mis- 

 taken, I shall again lose my bees. Let us 

 see. 



The natural inquiry now is, what is the 

 best, most practical and cheapest method 

 of changing the winter stores of bees. 

 Knowing by experience that sugar syrup 

 is cheaper and safer than honey as a bee- 

 food, I have for three years been experi- 

 menting on the best means of accomplish- 

 ing the above-mentioned change in the 

 stores. I have reduced to practice a sim- 

 ple system of manipulation that accom- 

 plishes the desired change to my satisfac- 

 tion, witliout cost, danger, or the trouble 

 of even opening the hives, to say nothing 

 of the almost impractical method of late 

 extraction ; and I will detail it in due 

 time, feeling sure tliat it will meet with 

 favor by all practical honey-producers. 

 Avoid low temperature and nitrogenous 

 food, and success is certain. 



Dowagiac, Mich. 



For tbe American Bee JoumaL 



The Use of Drone-Traps. 



IIRNUY ALLEY. 



In their article on page 165, Messrs. 

 Dadant & Son seem to entertain the idea 

 that a drone-trap has no other uses than 

 that of catching drones, when, in fact, that 

 is one of its minor features. They say : 

 "To begin with, let us state, that in bee- 

 keeping as with every business, the aim 

 ouglit to be to secure the largest result, 

 with the least labor and expense." This is 

 just tlie view tliat 1 took ot the matter, and 

 hence the invention of a drone-trap as a la- 

 bor-saving implement in the apiary. Per- 

 haps Messrs. Dadant & Son could do with 

 fewer men in their apiary if they used the 

 drone-trap, as I will endeavor to show. 



They say further : " Mr. Alley does not 

 seem to he in the habit of ri'iilacing in his 

 hives the drone-comb by worket-comb, for 

 he writes: 'Would it not be a j.ivtty job 

 to go over 100, or even 50 colonies <.it bees 

 and cut out the drone-comb and fill the 

 places with foundation ?' " The very rea- 

 son wli\- 1 made the remark was because I 



