272 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



March 29, 1906 



hive was the better. Why? Because the large colonies filled 

 their large supers just as quickly as the small colonies filled 

 their small supers. Or, in other words, a colony having 10 

 frames and a dummy or division-board filled a super 16 inches 

 wide as quickly as a colony with 8 frames filled a super cov- 

 ering the 8 frames, or 12 inches wide. . Now, please bear in 

 mind that this does not take place in every instance. But 

 when we have good, prolific queens in our colonies, this will 

 prove true in the majority of instances during good seasons. 

 Our trials were not made on 8 or 10 hives of a kind, but on 

 hundreds of each kind. 



I see, in some European papers — I will not name them for 

 fear of hinting some feelings — that experiments are conducted 

 and conclusions reached with 2 colonics. Some of those ex- 

 periments would give an entirely different result, if they were 

 conducted on fron. 20 to 50 colonies ; and they would be still 

 more conclusive if tu-- were conducted in different apiaries 

 located at spots giving a liiilrrent crop. 



I have stated that large hivtr give large crops. Now here 

 is our explanation of the cause; rllow me to quote Mr. 

 Langstroth, for I cannot put my meaning in better words, 

 and it was his ideas which prompted us to try different sizes 

 of hives: 



"Many hives cannot hold one-quarter of the bees, comb 

 and honey which, in a good season, may be found in large 

 ones; while their owners wonder that they obtain so little 

 profit from their bees. A good swarm of bees, put into a 

 diminutive hive, may be compared to a powerful team of 

 horses harnessed to a baby wagon, or a noble fall of water 

 wasted in turning a petty water-wheel. As the harvest of 

 honey is always in proportion to the number of bees in the 

 hive, and as a large colony requires no more labor from the 

 apiarist than a small one, the hive should afford the queen 

 sufficient space to deposit all the eggs which she is able to 

 lay during 21 days — the average time for an egg to be trans- 

 formed into a worker. Besides, it should contain a certain 

 amount of food, honey and pollen." 



The size of the hive must, therefore, be figured accord- 

 ing to the abilitiy of the queen to fill the cells with eggs. It 

 was upon this that my father based the experiments which 

 practice confirmed. He was not content with experimenting 

 with Quinby and Langstroth hives of from 8 to 16 frames — 

 he even tried hives with frames 18x18 inches, which, I will 

 hasten to say, proved a complete failure. They were too large. 



Although many leading apiarists disagree with us upon 

 the question of large and small hives, they do not disagree 

 upon the idea evolved. All those who have investigated agree 

 that, in many instances, the queens can fill with eggs as large 

 hives as we use, and that in those instances large hives are 

 good ; but they insist that the hive to be used must be small 

 enough to accommodate only average queens, preferring to 

 crowd the best queens rather than give too much room to the 

 poorer ones. That is all the difference. We belieive in plac- 

 ing our aim at the best, trying to achieve a result allowing 

 the development of the best, which in most cases secures the 

 best, as we have proven to our heart's content, by constant 

 success. Hamilton, 111 



# 



Temperature Inside the Winter Cluster 

 of Bees 



BY G. M. DOOLITTLE. 



ON page 123 will be found some questions asked by "Wis- 

 consin." regarding the temperature inside the "brood- 

 nest," and answers by Dr. Miller, all of which are very 

 interesting to me. As I have conducted some experiments 

 along this line, I will give "Wisconsin" the benefit of the 

 same, and I think others will be interested in the matter also. 



Dr. Miller thinks it strange that he cannot find this mat- 

 ter indexed in his bee-books, and I think it strange also; but 

 as far as I remember none of the books treat on this matter, 

 although I think it one of exceeding interest, and one of con- 

 siderable importance also. 



Some years ago I looked for this matter through all the 

 literature on bees which I had, and all I could find on the 

 subject was where Quinby in his "Mysteries of Bee-Keeping 

 Explained" declared that the bees in the inside of the cluster 

 during winter are as lively as in summer, while tlir.se on the 

 outside were somewhat stiffened with the cold. This I found 

 to be a fact. It was at the time the subject of bees hiber- 

 nating during winter was under discussion, some claiming 

 that they did hibernate, while I, and others, did not believe it. 

 So, to prove that Quinby and myself were correct. I went to 

 a colony one morning when the mercury was at IS degrees 



below zero, and suddenly jerked up one of the frames which 

 went down through the middle of the cluster, when I was 

 met by a teacupful or less of bees that took wing and darted 

 at me to sting. Of course I lowered the frame back as soon 

 as possible, exclaiming to myself as I did so, "Quinby was 

 right ! No hibernation there !" And I would say the same to 

 those who are now talking of resurrecting that old idea of 

 bees hibernating. Nothing can be said to hibernate that is 

 able to get a "summer motion' on so quickly as can the bees 

 in a cluster in mid-winter. 



Of course, the bees at the outside of the crust forming 

 the cluster were off, and slow to move, as Quinby said, but 

 as soon as this crust was passed the rest were lively enough 

 to "make it hot" for me in short order, even on a 15-degrees- 

 below-zero morning. 



A little later on I found these words in one of the bee 

 papers : "Now, when bees are massed together in a cluster 

 during winter thev keep up an animal heat that keeps the 

 whole" cluster from freezing." And in another paper I found 

 these words : "Not one of our entomologists can tell us any- 

 thing reliable about the winter temperature of a bee-hive, or 

 the inside of the cluster of bees." This last made me resolve 

 that if such was the case, it was time that some one found 

 out. so I purchased, at a high price, a spirit thermometer said 

 to be perfectly correct in its readings. This I slipped down 

 into the center of a good colony of bees which occupied a 

 sphere about 10 inches in diameter. This thermometer regis- 

 tered cold as well as heat by having two spirit balls and two 

 steel bars or registers, one on the heat side and one on the 

 cold side. These registers were set at the time of placing it 

 in the cluster at the point where it stood when taking from 

 my coat-pocket, which was about 48 degrees. The thermom- 

 eter was placed in the cluster at about 3 p. m., and left over 

 night, during which time the mercury outside sunk to nearly 



T °Upon taking it out the next morning I found that a tem- 

 perature of 27 degrees had been registered of the heat side, 

 this showing that through the disturbance caused by putting 

 the thermometer in, a temperature of that amount had been 

 reached at the highest point, while I had nothing satisfactory 

 as to the lowest point reached during the night. 



I then took the thermometer to the house and put it near 

 the stove till a temperature of 110 degrees was reached, when 

 the steel registering bar on the cold side was drawn down so 

 as to register accordingly. I then put a piece of iron on 

 the stove till it was fully as warm as the 110 degrees, when 

 this iron was placed in a box, and one end of a piece of 

 flannel cloth was tucked down over and about this warm iron. 

 Then I laid the thermometer on the flannel, when the other 

 end was brought up over this, and the box closed I then 

 had it fixed so that I could ascertain just how cold it got 

 while the thermometer was in the cluster, as I would now 

 obtain the coldest register, instead of the warmest, as before. 



During the afternoon the weather became severe, and 

 continued so for 5 days, during which time the mercury out- 

 side went as low as 16 below zero When the storm abated 

 the thermometer was taken out, and I found that the coldest 

 point reached inside the cluster during those 5 severe days 

 was 63 degrees above zero. In this way I experimented on 

 several colonies until I found that the ave-age temperature 

 of a good colony of bees in the middle of the cluster is 64 

 degrees when the mercury is at zero outside the hive; ana 

 that for every 15 degrees of change from the zero point out- 

 side the change in the cluster would vary one degree, or very 

 nearly that. Thus 16 degrees below zero outside gave 63 

 degrees in the cluster; 30 degrees below gave 62 degrees in 

 the cluster. Zero outside gave 64 degrees in cluster; lb de- 

 grees above gave 65 degrees, and 28 degrees above (the high- 

 est it was during the time I was conducting my experiments) 

 gave 66 degrees in the cluster. 



All of the colonies were in double-walled hives with pack- 

 ing at the sides and on top. All know that bees can readily 

 fly° in a temperature of 45 degrees in the shade, and yet this 

 flying temperature was exceeded by 18 to 20 degrees in the 

 cluster of bees at all times, with a temperature as low as we 

 rarelv ever have. 



But I see that "Wisconsin" wants to know what the tem- 

 perature will he "above" the brood-nest. This was what 1 

 next proceeded to find out. All who have looked at a cluster 

 of bees in cold weather know that if we open the hive so 

 carefully that the bees are not disturbed, we will see only the 

 pointed ends of the abdomens standing out from the center 

 in all directions, something like the spokes of a wheel stand 

 out. only that these abdomens are packed together as closelv 

 as it is possible for them to be. according to the number of 

 bees that can squeeze together between the ranges of comb. 



