THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



37 



lident that the above suggestions have 

 experimental foundation sufficient to 

 merit a hearing, and I as fully believe 

 that if heeded they will very matei-iall}^ 

 change the ('om])lexion of aj)iai'ian 

 pursuits in our State. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



'What KiUed the Bees." 



The answer given to this question by 

 Mr. Quinbj', in the December number 

 •of the Journal, is — -^cold." He says : 

 ^' I have made diligent inquiry, and 

 studied cause and efi'ect with the best 

 of my ability, and uow^ repeat my con- 

 viction that cold is the cause of the 

 failure to winter, dysentery being an 

 dntervexiing linlv." Again : "I know of 

 nothing to jDroduce dysentery, except 

 >cold weather.^' And again : "No doubt 

 other causes destroy lives sometimes, 

 but I have yet to find the first case 

 where a large number, with suflficient 

 honey, was lost, and cold not at the 

 bottom." 



Mr. Quinby, as well as Mrs. Tupper, 

 "to whose views on this subject he refers 

 as coinciding with his, is deservedly 

 Jiigh authority on aj^icultural questions. 

 His long experience, close observations, 

 .and unquestioned candor, entitle his 

 opinions to great consideration. But, at 

 the wish .<Df being considered pi-esumptu- 

 ■ous, I will take the liberty of stating a 

 few facts in my own experience, which 

 eeem to me to refute this theory of Mr. 

 <iuinby. 



In the Autumn of 1868 I had nine 

 ■stocks, eight in box hives and one in a 

 Xiangstroth, and all strong in numbers 

 ^nd rich in stores. They began to die 

 ■about the first of November^ some time 

 before " cold weather^' had set in. My 

 .attention was first attracted to the mat- 

 ter by an unusual number of dead B^es 

 found in the morning before some of 

 the hives, while the others were yet 

 free from such trouble. The affected 

 stocks continued to die, one or two of 

 them so rapidly that before the last of 

 November all of the Bees in them were 

 dead. The surviving colonies were 

 housed for Winter about the first of 

 December, some of them at the time but 

 slightly affected with the malady, and 



others not at all. My house was made 

 especially fbi- the purpose. It was about 

 eight feet s(piare on the inside ; had 

 double walls, with the space of 10 inches 

 between them filled in with saw-dust ; 

 and was slightly ventilated at the to]). 

 The temperature within was quite even, 

 seldom falling below the freezing point 

 in the coldest weather. With all this 

 protection every Bee I had died rvith 

 the dysentery boi'ove the last of February. 

 All those hives had "sufficient honey," 

 som^ of them having on hand thirty or 

 forty pounds of solid comb; nor was 

 it possible that cold was at the "bottom" 

 of their loss. 



As this disease was a mystery to me, 

 I wrote to Mr. Quinby soon after my 

 Bees began to die, for light on the sub 

 ject, and received from him a very satis- 

 factory answer. The cause, to which 

 he then attributed the disease, was 

 much more consistent with the facts, in 

 my judgment, than that which he now 

 assigns. It was impure honey. 



In the Fall of 1871, I had over sixty 

 stocks in Langstroth hives, which I put 

 up for the Winter about the middle of 

 November. These I placed in a dry, 

 dark and warm cellar, under my kitchen 

 and dining room. In the same floor I 

 had kept through the previous Winter 

 ten stocks, with the loss of not over half 

 a pint of dead Bees to the whole lot,' 

 and on an average, by actual weight, of 

 five and a half pounds of honey to the 

 hive. This cellar is so warm that I 

 have kept Irish potatoes in it, without 

 any covering, through the coldest 

 weather.' My sixty odd stocks had not 

 been in it over a month before they be- 

 gan to die with the unmistakable dys- 

 enter}', and before the ensuing Spring, 

 forty-three entire colonies had perished. ' 

 It would be utterly absurd to assume 

 that they died from cold, either direct- 

 ly or indirectly, for there was nothing 

 cold about them. Nor did they starve. 

 They had enough honey, such as it was. 

 But the most of it was gathered late in 

 the Summer, mainly from buckwheat. 

 The prolonged drought in the latter 

 part of the Summer had caused them to 

 consume most of their early stores. The 

 ten stocks that had Wintered so suc- 

 cessfully^ the year before, had honey 

 that was stored in the early part of the 



