354 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



December 



move it, then I iinraediately went to 

 a warm room, when I had a perfect 

 register of 63 degrees above zero, as 

 the lowest point reached during the 

 days of extreme cold. In tliis way I 

 kept on experimenting for several 

 weeks, using several different colonies 

 during tlie time, until I arrived at the 

 following, which I think is very nearly 

 accurate, when a colony is in perfect 

 quietude: When the mercury stands 

 at zero outside, the temperature in the 

 center of the cluster of bees is 64°, and 

 for every 15 degrees of change from 

 this point (outside), the change in the 

 cluster is 1 degree. Thus 16° below, 

 gave 63°; 2ero gave 64°; 15° above 

 gave 65°; while 30° above, (the high- 

 est it was during the experiments) gave 

 66° in the cluster. By the above it 

 will be seen that the bees must burn 

 as it were much fuel in times of ex- 

 treme cold, in order to warm the tem- 

 perature of the cluster up, from way 

 below zero to 63° above that point. As 

 this fuel must be honey or its substi- 

 tute in sugar, all will readily see that 

 it costs something for the bees tu with- 

 stand cold winter weather in some 

 bleak place .on their summer stands. 

 Understanding things as we do, the 

 question naturally arises, whether 

 those who are recommending out-door 

 wintering, are not making a mistake 

 and losing in dollars and cents by the 

 extra amount of honey which must be 

 consumed over cellar wintering. Sure- 

 ly, it cannot take as much fuel to warm 

 the forty-five degrees above zero, 

 which is the temperature all admit is 

 best for cellar wintering, up to 65°, as 

 it does to warm a temperature of from 

 10° to 30" below zero to the same 

 point. Is not this a matter well worth 

 spending some thought upon. 



I have also conducted many exper- 

 iments during the summer months to 

 find out what was the right temper- 

 ature for brood rearing. In doing this 

 only colonies in a perfectly normal 

 condition were experimented upon. 

 In this case I had no trouble, as the 

 outside air was alvvays colder than the 

 air inside of the brood nest, so all 1 

 had to do was to set the thermometer 

 at the point it might chance to be 

 when I open the hive to put it in, and 

 let the bees do the rest. The first ex- 

 periment tried was in early spring 

 when there was a prospect of some 

 freezing during the night. I did not 

 guess wrong in regard to the freezing, 

 for the next morning the ground was 

 white with frost, and upon taking the 

 thermometer out at about nine o'clock 

 I found that the very coldest point 

 reached was 92° above zero, or a de- 

 gree of heat not at all comfortable to 

 the average member of the human 

 family. Next I tried when the mer- 

 cury stood at 90° in the shade, sup- 

 posing that I Avould find a much great- 

 er amount of heat in the brood nest 

 than on the frosty night, but to my 

 surprise I found that the highest point 

 reached with 90° outside, was only 94° 

 inside, with the sun pouring its hot 

 rays down upon the top of the hive, 

 and at no time in all of my exper- 

 iments did I find the temperature in- 

 side any brood nest above 98°, even 

 though the mercury outside stood at 

 nearly that point, and in one case a 

 little above. This show^s that the bees 

 are capable of reducing the heat of 

 the cluster as well as keeping it at the 

 desired point when it is much colder 

 outside. The more we study into the 

 mysteries of the inside of the bee hive 

 the more marvelous they become, and 



