650 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



times a family of birds located near 

 the apiary watclied for and caught 

 tlieiii. and that whilst he was a friend 

 to the little birds, yet when they were 

 known to be guilty of this they 

 should be removed ; and that there is 

 a species of large hornet that catches 

 them on the wing, and that they had 

 been known to enter nuclei and" drag 

 them out. 



Mr. Crigley thought more loss was 

 occasioned by high winds than in any 

 other way. 



G. W. iDemaree and J. T. Connley 

 concurred in ,the opinion that more 

 were destroyed by their own bees, by 

 being " balled " cin their return from 

 their •' bridal tour " than i!i any other 

 manner — a fact that both of them had 

 observed in numbers of cases. 



" At what age is the drone com- 

 petent for service V"' Mr. Langstroth 

 answered, " About the eighth day 

 after emerging from the cell."' 



SECOND DAY. 



The convention met at 9 a.m., with 

 President Johnson in the chair. The 

 election of officers for the ensuing 

 year was next in order, and the pres- 

 ent officers — President and Secretary 

 — were re-elected bv acclamation. 



As to the place of the next annual 

 meeting, the Association was about 

 equally divided between Lexington 

 and Frankfort. It was thought best 

 that the President appoint State Vice- 

 Presidents at leisure, and that the 

 time and place of the next annual 

 meeting should be arranged by the 

 executive committee, and be pub- 

 lished hereafter. 



At tlie annual meeting of the Asso- 

 ciation in September, 1883, Mr. (i. \V. 

 Demaree, ot Christiansburg, Dr. N. 

 P. Allen, of Smith's Grove, Mr. VV. C, 

 Pelham, of Maysville. and J. T. Conn- 

 ley, of Napoleon, were appointed a 

 committee on " The Development of 

 the honey and bee-keeping resources 

 of Kentucky.'' Mv. Demaree, the 

 chairman of the committee, reported 

 that they )iad procured valuable sta- 

 tistics and other useful information, 

 and the whereabouts of the choicest 

 locations in the State— all of which 

 was ready for publication in pamphlet 

 form. The report was accepted, the 

 committee continued, and also re- 

 nuested to do as they think best in 

 regard to the immediate publication 

 of the report. 



The discussion of questions was 

 then again taken up. 



" What should be done to protect 

 beginners from the wiles of patent- 

 hive venders ?" The general opinion 

 was that the fraternity should en- 

 deavor to keep beginners posted, and 

 that the beginners should help them- 

 selves by taking bee-papers. 



" Is more thorough organization on 

 the part of bee-keei)ers needed to 

 protect their best interests y" The 

 unanimous answer was, " Yes." 



■' Is it advisable to remove the pol- 

 len from the hives in preparing bees 

 for winter in this latitude ":''" •• lYo.'' 



The convention then adjourned till 

 1:30 p.m. 



At the appointed time the Associa- 

 tion assembled to hear the address of 

 Father Langstroth. The writer must 



acknowledge his inability to properly 

 comment here upon the address. The 

 presence of our venerable Father of 

 Modern .Vpiculture added much to 

 the interest and value of our meeting. 

 He spoke with much force and effect 

 in his eloquent manner ; told of his 

 love for bees in early life ; of the 

 many annoying mistakes made for 

 want of knowledge ; of the absence 

 of books and men of experience from 

 whom to learn ; and recounted the 

 various steps that led to the invention 

 of his movable-frame. He mentioned 

 in the most feeling manner the great 

 assistance. rendered him by his esti- 

 mable wife in times of " his great 

 afflictions, and lastly paid an affecting 

 tribute to our honored dead — Samuel 

 Wagner, Moses Quinby, Adam 

 Grimm, KichardColvin,AV. W. Cary, 

 and others who did so much to elevate 

 American apiculture to its present 

 high standard. 



After the address the Association 

 adjourned, and the members busied 

 themselves for awhile among the 

 splendid exhibits of bees, honey, ex- 

 tractors, smokers, nurseries, cages, 

 and many other apiarian appliances. 

 J. T. Connley, Sec. 



Country Gentleman. 



Burying Bees for Winter. 



C. J. KOlilNSON. 



The great difficulty in the premises 

 lies in our want of acquaintance with 

 the vital faculty of the bee, and the 

 science pertaining thereto. We may 

 fancy that bees are dependent for 

 their well-being on the same agencies 

 as ourselves ; but a moment's re- 

 flection can scarcely fail to show such 

 a supposition an obvious error. It is 

 well known that bees are so consti- 

 tuted that they have the faculty of 

 remaining torpid (chilled) during sev- 

 eral days, and then, by genial warmth, 

 revive again. Moreover, the normal 

 condition of bees while reposing in 

 confinement occasioned by cold, is a 

 semi-dormant state, in which there is 

 scarcely any animate action, and very 

 little consumption of vital air (oxygen) 

 and carbonaceous matter (food), and 

 little waste of tissue. Hence, the cry 

 about " pure air,'' unless bees are in 

 a stale of activity, is all " bosh," no 

 matter whence it "emanates. 



The more inanimate bees remain, 

 the less oxygen and food they require, 

 and the less consequent waste of 

 tissue and vitality — wearing out— dur- 

 ing winter. Therefore the conditions 

 that afford bees the most tranquil 

 repose through the very cold season 

 are the most advantageous. 



Bees while in a torpescent state re- 

 pose safely in dead air— a partial 

 vacuum where there is no oxygenated 

 atmosphere to excite vitality. They 

 must have pure air to respire while 

 not in a quiescent state. Cold pro- 

 duces an uneasy sensation in all creat- 

 ures by the escape of heat or genial 

 warmth, and the consequent contrac- 

 tion of the fine vessels. Heat ex- 

 pands the vessels, and (;old contracts 

 them, and the transition from an ex- 

 panded to a contracted state is accom- 



panied with a sensation that produces 

 a shock affecting more or less all liv- 

 ing creatures, and seriously affecting 

 the infirm and those of small vital 

 power. 



In studying the subject of safe 

 wintering, v^e should bear in mind 

 that the normal condition of bees is 

 not always the same, but that they 

 are in some respects like the 

 " sleepers " — the bear and the marmot. 

 The stupid reasoning that houey-bees 

 require pure air and ventilation 

 through winter, is as fallacious as 

 would be a claim that hiberuating 

 animals require fresh air during their 

 dormant state. While bees are clus- 

 tered in a cold, circulating atmos- 

 phere they do not repose quietly when 

 the temperature is below freezing. 

 The colder it is the greater the action 

 required to generate warmth to sus- 

 tain life, and the greater must be the 

 consumption of oxygen and food as 

 fuel. The " happy mean "—near the 

 freezing point— affords the choice of 

 evils— a quiescent state. A variation 

 of a few degrees, either above or be- 

 low freezing, changes the circum- 

 stances of condition materially. It 

 would be the same with " sleepers." 



During winter, if the condition of 

 bees be such that they consume com- 

 paratively large quantities of food, 

 they thus live fast and grow old from 

 the over-taxed expenditure of vitality, 

 and waste of time consequent on ex- 

 cited exertions to maintain an exis- 

 tence ; that is, they run their allotted 

 race sooner — a sequence that is one 

 of the fators of " spring dwindling." 



It is obvious, then, from the fore- 

 going, that the most successful 

 method of wintering is attainable by 

 having the bees repose in an atmos- 

 phere slightly charged with oxygen, 

 and the temperature as before indi- 

 cated. This end is attained by means 

 of " clamps," so-called, for winter 

 quarters. 



My experience with " clamps " ex- 

 tends over a period of about a quarter 

 of a century. I first derived my 

 knowledge of the " clamp " method 

 from Mr. Langstroth's book. He got 

 tlie plan from a German who prac- 

 ticed burying bees in Germany— bury- 

 ing the hives in about the same way 

 as potatoes are kept in pits. In the 

 arrangement of the clamps which I 

 constructed at first. I missed the end 

 I now have in view by which to at- 

 tain the best success. I fancied that 

 my repository for bees must be venti- 

 lated, else respiration would cease, 

 followed by death. I discovered that 

 in this supposition I was in error. At 

 first I constructed my clamps with 

 air-tubes in the bottoms of the clamps 

 and a chimney ventilator in the top, 

 so as to provide fresh air circulating 

 all through the clamp. This venti- 

 lating defeated the valuable points 

 gi4ined by excluding the external 

 atmosphere and providing a partial 

 vacuum or dead-space within the re- 

 pository. The clamps described by 

 Mr. Langstroth. and such as I first 

 experimented with, are about the 

 same sort of winter quarters as cellars. 

 The point gained by burying is an 

 unchangeable temperature of the 

 proper degree for bees to repose tran- 



