BEES 



595 



out serious interruption during the latter 

 part of the summer and the cluster of 

 bees occupies, on a cool day in autumn, 

 six to eight or more spaces between the 

 combs, or forms a compact cluster eight 

 or ten inches in diameter. Young bees, 

 If not •well protected by older ones, suc- 

 cumb readily to the cold, while quite old 

 bees die early in the spring, and others, 

 which emerged late in the summer or au- 

 tumn preceding are needed to replace 

 them. The third essential — good food — 

 is secured if the hive is liberally supplied 

 with well-ripened honey from any source 

 whatever, or with fairly thick syrup, 

 made from white cane sugar, which was 

 fed early enough to enable the bees to 

 seal it over before they ceased flying. 

 The syrup is prepared by dissolving three 

 pounds of granulated sugar in one quart 

 of boiling water and adding to this one 

 pound of pure extracted honey. Twenty 

 to 25 pounds for outdoor wintering in 

 the South, up to 30 or 40 pounds in the 

 North, when wintered outside with but 

 slight protection — or, if wintered indoors, 

 about 20 pounds — may be considered a 

 fair supply of winter food. 



Indoor Wintering' 



A dry, dark cellar or special repository 

 built in a sidehill or with double, filled 

 walls, like those of an icehouse, may be 

 utilized for wintering bees in extremely 

 cold climates. It should be so built that 

 a temperature of 42 to 45 degrees Fahr- 

 enheit (the air being fairly dry in the 

 cellar) can be maintained during the 

 greater part of the winter. To this end 

 it should be well drained, furnished with 

 adjustable ventilators, and covered all 

 over with earth, except the entrance, 

 where close-fitting doors, preferably three 

 of them, should open in succession, so as 

 to separate the main room from the out- 

 side by a double entry way. The col- 

 onies, supplied with good queens, plenty 

 of bees. 20 to 25 pounds of stores each, 

 and with chaff cushions placed over the 

 frames, are carried in shortly before snow 

 and severe freezing weather come. 



Any repository which is damp or one 

 whose temperature falls below freezing 

 or remains long below 38 degrees Fahren- 



heit is not a suitable place in which to 

 winter bees. When in repositories, the 

 bees have no opportunity for a cleansing 

 flight, nor do they, when the temperature 

 rises outside, always warm up sufficiently 

 to enable the cluster to move from combs 

 from which the stores have been exhaust- 

 ed to full ones, hence in a cold repository 

 they may possibly starve with plenty of 

 food in the hive. As a rule, colonies 

 would be better off out of doors on their 

 summer stands than in such places. 



Outdoor Wintering: 



Cold and dampness are the great winter 

 enemies of bee life. A single bee can 

 withstand very little cold, but a good 

 cluster, if all other conditions are favor- 

 able, can defy the most rigorous winters 

 of our coldest states. But if not thor- 

 oughly dry, even a moderate degree of 

 cold is always injurious, if not absolutely 

 fatal. Dampness in winter is therefore 

 the most dangerous element with which 

 the bee keeper has to contend. The mat- 

 ter would, of course, be quite simple if 

 only that dampness which might come 

 from the outside were to be considered, 

 but when the air of the hive, somewhat 

 warmed by the bees and more or less 

 charged with the moisture of respiration, 

 comes in contact with hive walls or comb 

 surfaces made cold by outside air, con- 

 densation takes place, and the moisture 

 trickles over the cold surfaces and cluster 

 of bees, saturating the air about them or 

 even drenching them, unless by forming 

 a very compact cluster they are able to 

 prevent it from penetrating, or by greater 

 activity to raise the temperature suflS- 

 ciently to evaporate the surplus moisture, 

 or at least that portion near them. But 

 this greater activity is, of course, at the 

 expense of muscular power and requires 

 the consumption of nitrogenous as well 

 as carbonaceous food. Increased cold or 

 its long continuance greatly aggravates 

 conditions. 



Nature has provided that the accumula- 

 tion of waste products in the body of the 

 bee during its winter confinement should 

 be small under normal conditions, but 

 unusual consumption of food, especially 

 of a highly nitrogenous nature like pollen. 



