THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



v3 



^ 



OISTURE AND VEN- 

 TILATION IN BEE 

 HIVES AND CEL- 

 LARS. BY C. F. 



SMITH. 



Friend Hutchinson — 

 I am induced, by two 

 reasons, to comply 

 with your request to 

 write on the above subject. 



1st. Fromthe standpoint of my exper- 

 ience during- the past four years, I can 

 see that the bee-l<;eeping public in gen- 

 eral has a wrong- impression. 2nd. 

 That, in my opinion, very little ad- 

 vance in wintering problems has been 

 made in the past twenty years. As 

 there were ten or twelve years that I 

 did not read the bee papers, it is pos- 

 sible that others have touched upon the 

 points I shall make; but, judging from 

 the "handwriting on the wall," they 

 did not; or, if they did, they failed to 

 make the desired impression. 



UPWARD VENTILATION, ABSORBENTS 

 AND SEALED COVERS. 



Twenty years ago the bee-keeping 

 public in general admitted that bees 

 in winter required one of two things — 

 either an absorbent, or else direct, up- 

 ward ventilation. There were great 

 controversies pro and con, but the pref- 

 erence of bee-keepers generallj% favor- 

 ed absorbents. About this time some 

 new and improved hives were invented 

 and placed on the market which did 

 not readily admit of absorbents; then 

 ' it became necessary to invent a new 

 theory on ventilation to go with the 

 new hives. Then it was, tliat the 

 hermetically sealed hive idea was 

 sprung upon the public. This falla- 

 cious idea catne near sealing the doom 

 of many an apiarist; among them one 

 of the progenitors of the idea, who lost 

 335 colonies out of 400. Then he wrote 



a book and called it Success in Bee 

 Culture, in fullfilment of a promise to 

 "write a book upon bee-culture when 

 the wintering problem had been solved." 

 It also came near sealing my doom, for 

 I accepted the new idea along with the 

 "New Hive, " (which, by the way, is 

 the best hive yet invented.) 



bees don't stop holes and cracks 

 in their hives, through which 



THEY CAN pass. 



These men discovered that the bees 

 painted the interior of their homes, and 

 stopped up all the little cracks, and so 

 they jumped at the conclusion that bees 

 wanted neither absorbents nor upward 

 ventilation. But do they? Did any 

 one ever know bees to stop up a hole or 

 crack in the top of their hive, through 

 which they could readily pass? Many 

 of my hives, through faulty workman- 

 sliip, have ]4 inch holes, and some % 

 inch cracks, in their upper corners, 

 yet, in ten years time, the bees have 

 made no effort to stop them up. I ad- 

 mit that they stop up their honey- 

 boards, but only where it is a tight 

 squeeze to get through. 



IN THE consumption OF HONEY, WHAT 

 BECOMES OF THE MOISTURE? 



If bees in a cellar consume from 4 

 pounds (Doolittle) to 20 pounds (Bing- 

 ham) in proportion to the distress they 

 are in), what becomes of all the watery 

 portion? If the great lights were to 

 winter their bees in a country where 

 they have winter all the year round, 

 except four or five months, when the 

 sleighing is not very good and the 

 flowers are in bloom, they would soon 

 have to find out what became of it, or 

 go out of the business. 



Do bees, combs, and the hive-interi- 

 or, get wet, stinking, rotten and dis- 

 eased from the "cold damp cellar" or 

 from their own mositure? Do the 

 sock and foot in the rubber-boot get 

 wet from the water of the melting snow 



