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TAB AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



caused in this way, especially if the hive have 

 a great quantity of honey in the combs. The 

 more honey there is left, the more certain you 

 may be that their destruction was brought about 

 in this way. The oxygen of the air being ex- 

 hausted by an excessive number of bees crowd- 

 ed into such a small cubic measurement of air, 

 in thin layers between the combs filled with 

 honey, or having comparatively few emi>ty 

 cells. The remedy is upward ventilation. Of 

 course you do not want a brisk current of air 

 passing through the hives, when wintered on 

 their summer stands. 



There is still another reason why a great 

 many bees die in winter. I have been travel- 

 ing through southern Illinois and Indiana, 

 where the Bee Cholera Epidemic is said to have 

 raged last fall, and propose to give you my ver- 

 sion of it. I am aware that others will diifer 

 from me, but think that time will demonstrate 

 the correctness of my position. 



The first appearance of the many hives I ex- 

 amined (and which amounted to almost hun- 

 dreds), was that the hives were without excep- 

 tion filled with honey to the very bottom, or 

 sliowed signs that the honey cells, Avhere any 

 large number seemed to be open, had been torn 

 open by robber bees. Robbing bees, in their 

 great haste to obtain honey, leave the outer 

 edges of the cells they open very rough and 

 ragged. An expert can easily tell how the 

 honey was extracted from any piece of comb. 



I also learned on inquiry that the bees had 

 annoyed every grocery store that cootaiued 

 even sorghum molasses, and in their anxiety, 

 impelled perhaps by tlie pangs of hunger, had, 

 in the fore part of the summer, gone into the 

 kitchen and pantries in which there were sweets 

 of any kind. This state of afl^'airs existed for 

 somewhat more than a month. Of course the 

 bees, where such hunger existed, could not rear 

 any brood worth mentioning. 



The reader will here call to memory the fact 

 that ninety days is, in the working season, the 

 lifetime of the worker bee. He will also remem- 

 ber that for thirty days, up to this period, no 

 young brood was reared. I also learned that 

 such a honey-dew, as occurred then, was never 

 known in those parts before. One man even 

 afiirmed that, in driving up his cows in the morn- 

 ing, his clothing became (to use his own words) 

 quite stickey. Others told me such unreasonable 

 stories, that I am unwilling to communicate 

 them. I found that this condition of matters 

 existed in that locality for over a month. Ten 

 days being sufficient for a good stock of bees to 

 fill its combs, where surplus honey exists in such 

 enormous quantity, the bees immediately filled 

 their hives so full that no empty cells remained 

 for the queen to deposit eggs "in. The change 

 from intense want to excessive surplus being so 

 sudden, the queen did not have time to supply 

 the cells with eggs before they were filled with 

 honey ; and they remained so for perhaps sixty 

 days or longer. Now add the thirty days that 

 the colony could not rear any brood previously 

 from the absence of honey in the flowers, to the 

 sixty days that the combs were so full of honey 

 that the queen had no room to deposit eggs, 

 and you have ninety days, the natural lifetime 



of the worker bee in the working season. Some 

 men said the bees all left ; others that they all 

 sioarmed out. But when I asked them whether 

 they had seen them swarming out preparatory 

 to leaving, the invariable answer was, No ! 

 When I asked whether any of the family had 

 seen them swarm out and leave, the answer Avas 

 the same— though they would insist on it that 

 the bees must have done so, as they were all 

 gone. The manner of their disappearing is evi- 

 dence that the expiration of the term of the 

 natural life of the bee passed them off the stage 

 of life, slowly and gradually till all were gone. 

 In a great many cases a small number of bees 

 remained up to ihe first cold frosty night ; and in 

 some instances, a larger number remained till 

 near mid-winter, and then died. Some owners 

 saw their bees crawling out of the hive on warm 

 days late in the fall, drop down to the t^roand, 

 and die. In not one instance in a great number 

 was any Ihrge quantity of dead bees found in 

 the hive. So much for the Bee Choler%. 



The same principle holds good, if the bees fill 

 their combs so full that there is no room for the 

 queen to deposit eggs, for thirty days. Then 

 your hive, so far as numbers are concerned, is 

 one-third gone to destruction; and if the cells are 

 so filled for sixty daj'^s, that the queen has no 

 room to deposite eggs, then your hive is two- 

 thirds gone to destruction, and will perish soon 

 after, if left unaided. 



The second cause, ihen, of bees dying in win- 

 ter, is because the cells were kept so filled with 

 honey or pollen for say sixty days, that j'our 

 colonies go into winter quarters with only from 

 one-third to tAvo-thirds of a usual sized swarm 

 i.i a hive. The bees, in consequence of their 

 diminished numbers, not being able to with- 

 stand the rigorous cold, freeze to death, leaving 

 the hive filled with honey. Sometimes it occurs 

 that a colony loses i s queen in summer, and by 

 the time the cold weather approaches the bees 

 are few in number and perish in the same way ; 

 or they may not hold out till winter, the moth 

 destroying them previously. 



The remedy in all such cases, is the means 

 adapted to intelligence, ability, and wili. In 

 the first two cases, ihe surplus honey must be 

 taken out of the way of the bees, without if 

 possible producing a vacuum above them. 

 Boxes on the top of a hive are an intolerable 

 nuisance, for three reasons : first, becauseof the 

 production of a vacuum ; secondly, because of 

 the loss of time in getting the bees to work 

 readily in them ; and thirdly, because of the loss 

 of comb. Now, my beekeeping friends, do not 

 let me astonish you, l)ut I mean what I saj'- that 

 such boxes are an intolerable nuisance. Our 

 system of management has to undergo the 

 ordeal of rigid critical iuvesiigation. Bees will 

 produce more than double the amount of sur- 

 plus honey, if it be taken from the main hive, 

 and the empty combs returned below instead of 

 above, for the double purpose of saving the 

 comb and furnishing empty cells below, pre- 

 cisely where the instinct of the queen teaches 

 her that the eggs should be deposited. As the 

 brood that has been elevated hatches, the empty 

 cells in the upper part of the hive are filled with 

 honey by the bees, according to their instincts, 



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