No. 4.] BEE KEEPING. 413 



Yet the bees must have maintained their normal temperature. 

 Something besides outside protection is necessary to the 

 successful wintering of bees. Certainly one of the necessi- 

 ties of successful wintering is plenty of food, chiefly honey, 

 although Cheshire * states that pollen is essential to strong 

 wintering. He says : " Honey the bees consume to enable 

 them to produce heat and give forth energy, and pollen to 

 renew their nerve and muscle waste, selecting the one or the 

 other, as nature needs." These foods, it has been demon- 

 strated by experiment, are best arranged in the hive by the 

 bees themselves, and not supplied l)y slipping into the clus- 

 ter late in the fall a frame or two of honey. This may act 

 like a division board, and separate the cluster. In order to 

 avoid the need of doing this, if a swarm is weak in the fall, 

 feed the bees early in September a sj^'up of sugar and 

 water, half and half, or extracted honey, if you have it. 

 The bees will then deposit the food where they can use it 

 when clustered in winter. 



Another factor of extreme importance is a population of 

 young, tlu-ifty bees in a colony. Bees which have worked 

 all summer, gathering honey and raising brood, are worn 

 out, and cannot survive the winter, if they do the fall. 

 During the winter bees are quiet ; there is no wear and tear 

 upon them. They merely hang in a compact cluster within 

 the brood nest, moving about only enough to procure food 

 from time to time. Thus j^oung bees, when winter sets in, 

 are capable of resting throughout the cold months, being 

 fresh Avhen spring opens up. 



To summarize : the tAvo essentials are, have plenty of 

 naturally arranged stores, with [)lenty of young bees. Bees 

 enough to cover six standard Langstroth frames will usually 

 winter well. 



Besides these essentials, some protection for the outside 

 of the hive is desirable. It has been customary for years 

 to winter bees in long, low sheds or tenement hives. These 

 are expensive and cumbersome, and are apt to harbor mice, 

 which sometimes destroy the bees. Better satisfaction is 

 generally obtained by the use of chaff or double-walled 



* Frank R. Cheshire, " Bees and bee keeping," Vol. II., p. 525, London, Eng. 



