TOE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



183 



ciples must not be violated if we would expect 

 to succeed. You can easily see that A., with 

 Ms management, will not receive as much profit 

 from his twenty-five swarms or stocks, as B. 

 would from twelve, with his management." 



On reading this article over, I find that you 

 might as well say Gallup in place of B. How 

 does it happen that A., living on one side of the 

 street, has any quantity of swarms destitute in 

 fall; while Gallup, on the opposite side, has in- 

 creased to double the number that A. has, and 

 still Gallup's swarms have abundance of honey 

 for wintering? 



Elisha Gallup. 



Osage, Iowa. , 



[For the American Bee Journal.] 



Upward Ventilation. 



I have groped in the darkness of ignorance 

 and self-conceit, and want to tell apiarians how 

 I discovered the truth. 



A skillful bee-hunter told me that bees with 

 upward ventilation were always dry and in 

 good condition in winter. One of my neigh- 

 bors took two hives from their stands, set them 

 on the ground, look honey from the top, and, 

 the bees being in the w r ay, the tops were not 

 entirely closed. The winter was hard, and the 

 suow diifted over the tw T o hives on the ground ; 

 but when it melted, the bees worked out of the 

 tops of the hives, and were in fine condition. 

 All on the stands — five or six — were dead. 



But I could find no upward ventilation in 

 hundreds of bee trees which I examined. Bees 

 would not work in a cap with a fly hole, or not 

 air tight. When I gave them a fly-hole near 

 the top of the hive, they kept it stuffed with 

 bees, to retain the warmth, closed with propolis, 

 and used those lower down. One fall I bought 

 a barrel of Hoosier honey, followed the bee- 

 hunters collecting the bees, and observed the 

 small swarms were in narrow well protected 

 cavities. I united the remaining bees, making 

 twelve swarms, put them in hives in the cellar, 

 with some combs to cluster on, bored holes in 

 the tops, poured honey in rings around these 

 holes, and tapped on the hives. The bees came 

 up and fed once in two or three days, keeping 

 the holes stopped when not feeding. They all 

 soon died with dysentery, except one that had 

 honey in the combs. This proved that eating 

 honey exposed to cold which checks perspira- 

 tion, causes dysentery. In the light of this 

 experience I ought to have known why bees are 

 opposed to upward ventilation, and would not 

 work in caps unless there were tight and closed 

 fly -holes at the top. 



I settled here in 1834. Wild bees were plenty, 

 and I made it a point to examine every tree I 

 found cut, size and shape of cavity, size and 

 position of fly-hole, and thought with Quinby 

 that they were miserable places for bees, and 

 that I could contrive better. I had the dyspep- 

 sia then and slept but little, and spent the wak- 

 ing hours of night, year after year, planning 

 hives ; but always discovered some defect in my 

 plans. I was ignorant of the nature and laws 



of matter, and became conscious of my inabil- 

 ity to devise anything reliable. Down the vista 

 of the past I saw the wrecks of human inven- 

 tion disappear in the dark waters of oblivion. 

 One night, as I lay thinking of my hopeless 

 labors, an overwhelming conviction, sudden as 

 the lightning's flash, resolved all my doubts in 

 a moment. It seemed impious to suppose that 

 Infinite Wisdom and Goodness had not fur- 

 nished the bee a home adapted to its needs. It 

 should be our pattern, with modifications, to 

 adapt it to our wants. Then my soul was filled 

 with light. 



" There was a revelation there ; 

 Truths, before not understood, 

 Crowded on a startled ear." 



I had now a base for future discovery — a 

 standard by which I detected error— a test by 

 which I determined every doubt — an unchang- 

 ing faith in Nature, as the outward manifesta- 

 tion of the Deity. Thenceforth the native home 

 of the bee was my admiration and study ; and, 

 years after, when every American authority 

 was recommending almost unlimited upward 

 ventilation in winter, and the bees were dying 

 with cold and dysentery, I endeavored, through 

 the pages of the Prairie Farmer, to expose the 

 error, and hoped to see it dying among its wor- 

 shipers. 



John M. Price, in the May number, page 218, 

 wants to know what killed his bees. I suppose 

 they were smothered. In cold hives a fly-hole 

 at the bottom may do in mild weather ; but the 

 first cold snap a great many are lost every win- 

 ter. Compelled by the cold, the bees creep 

 together closely; the outer bees are chilled, and 

 if they remain in this condition thirty-six hours, 

 or freeze, they never recover. By some kind 

 provision, before they reach the freezing point, 

 a disturbance ensues; perhaps the central bees 

 are distressed for want of air, and struggling to 

 obtain it, they break through the torpid crust. 

 Panting and gasping for breath, they need a 

 great supply of air, and if they get it much 

 heat is generated; the torpid bees are covered, 

 revived, and go to the centre for honey. If not, 

 the bees perish. If the hive is too broad and 

 cold, or the swarm too small, the torpid bees 

 may not all be roused, and some will die. The 

 colder the hive, the more air is needed to gene- 

 rate heat ; and the more air we give, if it es- 

 capes at the top, carrying off the heat as fast as 

 generated, the colder will be the hive and the 

 more frequent and severe the disturbance and 

 suffering, wearing out the bees. Thus small 

 swarms consume honey enough to winter a large 

 one, and perish before spring. Heat and mois- 

 ture are elements of life, but cold is death. 



Now, Mr. Price, let us look at the divine 

 pattern, the hollow tree. You know bees suc- 

 ceed here, as a rule, without upward ventilation. 

 This is a stubborn fact— a knockdown argument 

 that upward ventilation men have not the man- 

 liness to acknowledge, and will never have the 

 ability to set aside. But we find here a fly-hole 

 on the side, often from three to five inches in 

 diameter, not liable to be choked up, admitting 

 an abundant supply of air for all emergencies, 

 without carrying off the heat; a narrow cavity 

 enabling the bees to command all their stores ; 



