THE AMERICAI^ BEE JOURNAL. 



695 



It is remarkable that they should have 

 succeeded so completely and in so 

 short a time, since the closet was en- 

 tirely dark and they could only enter 

 by a crevice under the door." 

 Baltimore, 5 Md. 



Michigan Agricultural College Bulletin. 



Wintering Bees. 



A. J. COOK. 



The importance of bee-culture, as 

 one of our national industries, is 

 hardly appreciated. According to 

 our well demonstrated modern phi- 

 losophy, plants pour out their nectar 

 as a sort of free coffee or lunch, to 

 attract bees and other insects to a 

 most important work in vegetable 

 economy, the work of fertilization, 

 which largely depends upon insects, 

 and without which full fruitage is 

 impossible. The simple work of 

 gathering nectar then is indirectly of 

 tremendous economic importance to 

 the farmer and horticulturist, and so 

 to our whole country. 



Again, this nectar, when acted 

 upon by the digestive juices of the 

 bee, is converted into honey, a food 

 long valued for its superior excel- 

 lence, which, without bees, would be 

 wholly lost ; worse than lost, as we see 

 from the fact stated above. 



Bees, from their exceeding number 

 and peculiar (itness for the work, are 

 greatly superior to any and all other 

 insects in the accomplishment of this 

 fertilization of plants, while only the 

 honey-bees are abundant early in the 

 season, and they alone save this val- 

 uable food-element to minister to 

 man's good. 



To show the activity of bees and 

 their wondrous accomplishments, we 

 have only to present well known facts. 

 I find, by actual observation, that sin- 



fle flowers are sometimes visited by 

 ees fifty times a day, and I have 

 seen bees visit over twenty flowers a 

 minute. 



Mr. L. C. Root, of Mohawk, N. Y., 

 (American ApicuUurist, Vol. Ill, p. 197) 

 extracted 4,103 pounds of honey on 

 July 28, is>s.5, collected from bass- 

 wood, which had all been gathered by 

 40 colonies of bees in just 7 days. 

 This is over 100 pounds per colony, 

 and the daily stores of each colony 

 exceed 14 pounds. During the same 

 time, we secured, here at the College, 

 nearly half as much beautiful comb 

 honey from single colonies. 



I know of a farmer in this State— a 

 good farmer, with a farm of over 100 

 acres which he tills exceedingly well- 

 ■who has kept bees six or seven years, 

 and who, for the last three years, has 

 had from 60 to SO colonies ; the cash 

 receipts from these bees, during each 

 of the last three years, exceeded those 

 of the entire balance of his farm. 

 During all these years this gentleman 

 has never lost a colony of bees, until 

 last winter, when one or two died of 

 starvation. The same experience 

 would be true of any farmer in almost 

 any ^Michigan neighborhood, who 

 •would put the same thought, study, 

 and energy into the business. 



The one great drawback in this in- 

 dustry is the danger of loss which 

 comes with eacli of our severe win- 

 ters, whicli ;ire uniileasantly frequent 

 of late. Last w'inier was one of the 

 most severe. .Judging from the ex- 

 perience of the last 20 years, these 

 terribly cold winters may be expected 

 about once in 3 years. If we may 

 judge from the past, we may also 

 safely assert that during these most 

 trying winters there will be a loss of 

 from 50 to 100 per cent, of the colonies 

 of bees in all the Northern States. 

 Such a loss as this, unless it can be 

 prevented with ease and certainty, is 

 too serious an obstacle in the way of 

 success to be cheerfully endured, even 

 by those in the most attractive and 

 remunerative of employments, and it 

 is greatly to the praise of apiculture 

 that, burdened with this loss, it has 

 made such constant and rapid pro- 

 gress. 



The fact that so many apiarists, 

 like the one referred to above, meet 

 with no loss, makes it clear that with 

 full knowledge, followed by equal 

 care and pains, this loss may be 

 wholly prevented. Many of our best 

 bee-keepers have no more fear of los- 

 ing their bees than of losing their 

 cattle and horses. We, at the college, 

 have met with no such loss lor years. 



POINTS TO BE CONSIDERED. 



Bees are natives of a warm climate, 

 which would lead to the conclusion 

 that in rigorous climates they would 

 need protection, especially at times of 

 great cold. The fact that winter 

 losses are never heard of in California 

 and the South strengthens the argu- 

 ment, which seems almost demon- 

 strated by the fact that our losses in 

 the North always occur in winters of 

 great and long-continued cold. 



Again, bees are very neat, and in 

 confinement hold their fecal excreta, 

 or try to do so until they can fly. If 

 kept very quiet they eat very little (we 

 have had single colonies of bees pass 

 four or five months in the cellar with- 

 out consuming more than 4 or 5 

 pounds), and the food they do eat 

 when thus quiet is largely, if not 

 wholly, of honey, and so there is very 

 little waste. Thus when quiet bees 

 do not need to fly to discharge their 

 feces— they bear confinement for 

 months with no harm. The best con- 

 dition to maintain this needed quiet 

 is uniform temperature, which ex- 

 perience has demonstrated to be 

 about 4.5^ Fahr. I prefer the temper- 

 ature about the hive to be kept at 

 from 40- Fahr. to 45° Fahr. In a sur- 

 rounding temperature much higher or 

 lower, tlie bees are disturbed, exercise 

 much, eat more, and become diar- 

 rhetic. 



From years of experience and ob- 

 servation it seems pretty well demon- 

 strated that with enough good, whole- 

 some food— 30 pounds of good honey 

 or cane-sugar syrup — and a uniform 

 temperature as suggested above, our 

 bees will winter invariablv without 

 loss. 



DAMPNESS AND VENTILATION. 



It would seem that, a damp atmos- 

 phere, which, as we all know, is favor- 



able to the growth and development 



of fungi, and inimical to health in 

 higher animals, would lie harmful to 

 bees. It has been found, however, 

 that in many cases, even during the 

 terribly disasti'ous winters like the 

 past one, bees have wintered remark- 

 ably well in very damp cellars. Thus 

 while we may presume that a very 

 damp atmosphere is not the best, yet 

 we may safely assert, other things 

 being favorable, that it of itself will 

 not carry the seeds of mortality 

 with it. 



Ventilation has also been much 

 discussed, and various theories have 

 been offered ; yet the physiologist, 

 and especially the physio-entomolo- 

 gist, will not be easily persuaded that 

 insects whose functional activity is so 

 slight, that a minimum of food sup- 

 plies their wants, stand in need of 

 much air. One year at the College 

 I sealed a large colony of bees with 

 ice frozen solid at the'entrance of the 

 hive, and yet the colony wintered ex- 

 ceptionally well. This colony re- 

 mained for more than three months 

 entombed in a snow-bank. As the 

 hive was glued or propolized at the 

 top, we can see that the ventilation 

 was slight indeed. Thus physiology 

 and experience both show that under 

 the best conditions little heed need be 

 given to ventilation. While bees do 

 not hibernate in the sense of becom- 

 ing totally inactive, yet they taay and 

 should have their vital activity kept 

 at the minimum, else they will need 

 air and quite ample ventilation. As 

 we have already seen, cold or heat — 

 that is a temperature much below or 

 above 45° Fahr. — arouses bees, ex- 

 cites nutrition, and of course would 

 necessitate more food and oxygen, 

 and so more ventilation. Unless we 

 can keep the bees, then, in just the 

 condition to enforce quiet, we must 

 arrange for ample ventilation. 



It goes without saying, that the 

 temperature inside a hive, in which 

 bees are wintering, must generally be 

 warmer than that outside the same. 

 The fact that bees do not hibernate 

 establishes this truth. The ther- 

 mometer confirms it. We know that 

 moisture is sure to collect on a cool 

 surface ; but water dripping upon 

 bees cannot be healthful. The dis- 

 turbance and the wetting would both 

 be injurious. To winter bees with 

 the best success needs a covering that 

 is not a good conductor of heat. Ex- 

 periments on quite an extended scale 

 have shown me that this is not all 

 theory. 



We see then that the requisites to 

 success in wintering bees are. viz : 

 enough good food, uniform tempera- 

 ture without the hives at about 45° 

 Fahr., slight ventilation, and a cover 

 to the hive which is a non-conductor 

 of heat. 



METHODS THAT HAVE SECURED 

 SUCCESS. 



Food. — The food may be either 

 honey or cane-sugar syrup. Any kind 

 of honey, if wholesome and pleasant 

 to the taste, will answer. Even last 

 winter the bees at the College were 

 wintered wliolly on Imney gathered in 

 autumn, after Aug. 25, and all win- 



