172 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL AND GAZETTE. 



and that I had gone crazy on bees. But I 

 thought that I could show them their error. 



The new bees were brought, (in a patent 

 moth-proof hive of course;) were carried home 

 on a Slick by hand a wliole mile, as it was hot 

 weather; were placed in an upper story over a 

 wood-house, to be out of the way, (the Ohio 

 Farmer had recommended an upj)er story;) and 

 the next morning, before daylight, I Avas watch- 

 ing for the first bee to sally forth. But as I have 

 gone as far as I iutended, I will give my further 

 bee-trials and success in a future article. 



A. J. K 



i^ — ^-^^^ — *n"* 



For tlie American Bee Journal. 



Ventilating Bees. 



I see in the last number of the Journal a com- 

 munication from a Kentucky correspondent 

 about ventilating bee-hives, in which he as- 

 sumes that it is impossible to smother bees. 

 This from one who has "noticed, read, and 

 studied bees some" is a little surprising, and if 

 it were not for the risk of misleading the inex- 

 perienced, a reply would hardly be worth the 

 space it would occupy in your valuable jour- 

 nal. 



But he affects to talk seriously and says: — 

 " if these learned apiarians will go out into the 

 rural districts where bees are kept in hollow 

 lo"- gums, &c., and there talk about smothering 

 be'es to death, they will be. laughed at for their 

 ignorance." 



I have no doubt of it. There is a saying that 

 the ignorant are wise in their own conceit; and 

 that knowledge is on a par with such old time 

 superstitions asthese— " If any one dies in your 

 family you must hang crape on the bee-hives, 

 or they will surely all die;" " If you would be 

 lucky in keeping bees, you must not buy them 

 ■vfiih money, hnt must steal them and then go 

 and pay for them with sheep," and many more 

 equally as absurd notions. Yet some people 

 that cherished these ideas have learned to their 

 cost that bees can be smothered. With all 

 deference to the writer's belief— "to shut up a 

 swarm of bees in a perfectly air-tight hive, for 

 thirty-six hours in the heat of summer, without 

 any injury to the bees," is simply an impos- 

 sibility. Long before that time expires, they 

 will be one stinking mass without a sign of 

 life. 



I have no doubt your correspondent expres- 

 ses his honest belief; but with bees kept in hol- 

 low log gums, with movable bottom-boards, and 

 crevices stuffed with mud, as he describes, it 

 would be a matter of difficulty to get them air- 

 tight, if desired. 



In burying bees in the ground, the cool, fresh 

 earth so purifies the small amount of air they 

 need when in winter quarters, that stocks, par- 

 ticularly small ones, can be wintered success- 

 fully in that way, although I have known 

 several experiments of that character to result 

 in perfect failure. That " ventilation is as es- 

 sential to bees as pure air is to men," is a fixed 

 fact. D. C. Hunt. 



NOKTH TuNBBiDGb;, Vt , Feb. 8, 18C7. 



[From the Bienenzeitung] 



Heat from Muscular Action. 



It has been usual to attribute the extraordi- 

 nary development of heat occasionally observed 

 in a hive of bees to mechanical action. Some- 

 times it is assumed to be the result of the mu- 

 tual attrition of the clustered bees; sometimes 

 the effect of the tremulous motions or the rapid 

 vibrations of the wings of the individual bees. 

 Each of these has been regarded as the genera- 

 tor of no inconsiderable amount of heat. I 

 have on several occasions undertaken to show 

 the untenableness of this position; but find it so 

 frequently restated and relied on, that I am 

 induced to recur to it once more, in the hope of 

 showing that it is entirely unfounded. 



It is well known and freely conceded, that 

 a great degree of heat can be generated by fric- 

 tion. Compression also invariably produces 

 heat, and expansion or dilatation cold. Wood 

 may be excited by friction till it bursts into 

 flame; lead may be fused, and iron brought to a 

 glow, by rapid hammering. Nay, the spark 

 thrown off by the stricken flint is molten steel, 

 which indicates a temperature of 1400. C" 



Nevertheless, bees are unable, by any me- 

 chanical i^rocess of attrition or compression, to 

 raise the temperature of their bodies even the 

 fraction of a single degree. For the production 

 of heat in this manner, the development of au 

 amount of force is required, such as insects can- 

 not command. • The heat produced by com- 

 pression manifests itself only when the body 

 with which, either as free or latent, it is com- 

 bined, is brought within a more contracted 

 space. To effect this confessedly transcends the 

 power of the bees, and they would annihilate 

 themselves by friction, before they could by at- 

 trition, in the slightest degree, elevate the tem- 

 perature of their bodies. 



But all motion, all friction, all alar vibration, 

 involves muscular action; and possibly bees 

 might, in this way, indirectly generate heat. 

 We must, therefore, inquire whether the very 

 considerable increase of temperature at times 

 observable in hives, may not, at least in part, 

 be the result of increased muscular action. For, 

 since Ilelmholz has shown (in Midler's Ar- 

 chives for 1848, page 114,) that a muscle in 

 action always developes heat, it is regarded as 

 an incontrovertible truth in physiology, that in 

 the muscle, as in the steam-engine, active force 

 is produced by combustion, and that, conse- 

 quently, the oxidizable substances and the oxy- 

 gen stored up in the muscle are drawn upon 

 and consumed for the evolution of heat. Aye, 

 and long before science became cognizant of 

 this fact, man instinctively knew how to warm 

 himself in a low atmospheric temperature by 

 active bodily exercise. It was hence quite na- 

 tural that scientists and intelligent bee-cul- 

 turists should early conceive the notion that 

 the increased heat occasionally manifested in 

 the hive, was the result of peculiarly energetic 

 muscular action. This the more so, since it 

 Avas obvious that the muscular force of insects, 

 and of bees more especially, is enormously 

 great, and that hence great results, in all direc- 



