1897. 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



195 



a distance of a mile or more beyond 

 where the bees had gathered honey 

 the last time before the rain,) they 

 never go to the hill top, be the honey 

 ever so plenty there. The solution 

 seems to be that after the rain, they 

 go to the trees where they last pro- 

 cured honey, and finding none, nor 

 any near by, conclude that the har- 

 vest is over without going over the 

 strip where the honey has failed to 

 that which is beyond. I could give 

 other illustrations in this matter, by 

 way of the bees working on teasel 

 fields four to six miles to the north of 

 the apiary, but it seems to me that 

 the above should be sufficient to con- 

 vince any one that bees do labor to 

 advantage from four to seven miles 

 from their hives. 

 Borodino, N. Y. 



Ventilation. 



BY H. E. HILL. 



In the Southland Queen, J. AV. 

 Taft of Erie county, N. Y., has been 

 conducting a sort of serial story, or, 

 at least, a very protracted and laud- 

 itory series of articles regarding a new 

 hive which he calls the "Acme." The 

 prime object of its construction ap- 

 pears to be an ample supply of pure 

 air for the bees, and his writings 

 might lead the inexperienced to pre- 

 dict a general revolution in the world 

 of apiculture, through its introduction. 

 Here are a very few of the great many 

 things which he says in behalf of his 

 theory audits ofPspring — the "Acme" 

 hive: "Fresh air enters the hive at 

 the entrance, passes into the venti- 

 ducts that are formed by the division 

 boards and the outer walls of the hive, 

 up and over the surplus tray (super) 



and out by way of the holes in the 

 cover. The greater the heat outside 

 the hive the swifter the circulation. 

 This draws out of the brood nest the 

 carbonic acid gas, the amonia and 

 other poisonous gases during both 

 summer and winter. Pure air means 

 strong, healthy bees. A tight hive 

 cannot possibly be a sanitary habi- 

 tation for a bee, being ventilated only 

 at the entrance. They become a ver- 

 itable mine of microbe germs, a breed- 

 ing place for bacteria, and offer an 

 invitation to further produce foul 

 brood, bee paralysis, spring dwindling, 

 dysentery, etc. It would be difficult 

 to imagine a better storehouse for 

 those poisous which are so deleterious 

 to the bee than a tight hive." Like 

 other' instances, in this case theory 

 appears quite plausible, yet such ex- 

 cessive ventilation as that recom- 

 mended by Mr. Taft, would be dan- 

 gerous in other than the most expert 

 hands, and such extremes should be 

 avoided except as employed in exper- 

 imental work. Pure air is good, but 

 a free and direct current through a 

 hive is quite too much of a good 

 thing, and the lower the temperature 

 without, the more rapidly would the 

 heat of the colony ascend; the new 

 philosophy of Mr. Taft to the con- 

 trary notwithstanding. Thus the 

 purpose of this "sanitary" arrange- 

 ment is defeated, as its direct influence 

 is more deadly than the bacteria 

 which it is designed to carry off, and 

 the brood thus chilled affords a breed- 

 ing place for putrifective germs with- 

 in the hive ; while it is an established 

 fact that foul brood germs are not 

 thrown off into the air, nor is their 

 generation a result of deoxygenated 

 atmosphere. As to the theory re- 



