18SU 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



159 



any are desired. Cut the corners off rounding, 

 so clothing will not get lorn on them. 



These corrugated iion covers cost me a ti-if1e 

 less than 20 cents each. A buncli of lath, cost- 

 ing 1.5 cents or less, will make two packing- 

 cases. I think these are practically as good as 

 if made of more expensive lumber. If you de- 

 sire, you can turn them into excellent chicken- 

 coops for summer use. If you want them more 

 oramental. paint them with a mixture of skim 

 milk and hydraulic cement, or other cheap 

 paint. Kealiy. though. 1 don't think they look 

 very bad unpainted. They ought to be of a 

 dark color, so as to absorb as much of the sun's 

 heat as possible whenever it shim-s. This helps 

 brood -rearing in the spring wonderfully. One 

 of the principal arguments in favoi' of unpaint- 

 ed liives is. that bees build up in them better in 

 the spring. I think this is mostly due to the 

 dark color. With a dark outer case you have 

 all this advantage, and more, as the packing 

 retains the heat. 



I inclose a photo showing how the hives look. 

 packed as I have described. 



I have given up the coal-mine where I win- 

 tered them foi- tlie past two winters, as it was 

 too hard to get at it. 



My apiai-y is just ou the edge of a bluff. 

 There is a stream in the valh^y— Fox River- 

 running south. .1. A. (iHEEX. 



Dayton. 111. 



[I tliink you are mistaken. I did not mean to 

 convey tlie impression that outside winter 

 cases were new: on the contrary, all along I 

 have assumed that they were old. What I de- 

 sired to know was. how many bee-keepers were 

 using a similar arrangement now. and. more 

 particularly, how the so-called dead-air space 

 compared with packing. 



With your corrugated covers I should think 

 the snow would beat in under and so dampen 

 the packing; and there is that 10-lb. stone and 

 board— doesn't that make a good deal of rig- 

 ging? The outside packing-case that I de- 

 scribed on page 698 last year was to cost only 

 .3.5 cents, and. besides, it would be much neater. 

 If painted muslin or rooting-paper will answer 

 in place of tin. the cost will not be more than 

 vours.l E. R. R. 



SOMETHING ABOUT BEES AND BEE-CELLARS. 



DOOI.ITTI.K COXTIN'UES THE SfK.JECT. 



A correspondent writes thus: 



My bees seem to be wiuterhig- poorly on their sum- 

 mer stands, and I have resolved to build me a bee- 

 cellar. How should it Vie l)Uilt ? Iiow ventilated ? 

 what is the rig-lit temperature to keep it while tlie 

 bees are in it V at what time of the year should they 

 be put in and taken out? T know you have told us 

 considerable about bee-cellars, and I know that an 

 article on this will be a little unseasonable; but will 

 j'ou not be so kuid as to give us some of the small 

 points necessary along this line, and tell us about it 

 soon, as I wish to build mine riglit after sjiring work, 

 so it may get all dried out and readj' for the bees in 

 the fall? Give the article in Gleanings, as I think 

 it will be of interest to many besides myself. 



Well, I supposed I had written about all I 

 had to say on bee-cellars during the past; but 

 with the editor's permission I will try again. 



To my mind, it matters very little how the 

 cellar is built providing it accomplishes the 

 purpose for which it is intended; i. e.. keeping 

 a uniform temperature inside, no matter what 

 are the changes outside. Of course, yon will 

 want it large enough to accommodate all the 

 bees you will ever expect to have to put in it. 

 If it can be built in a side hill it will better ac- 

 complish the keeping of an even temperature 



than a cellar under a house can be made to, 

 and this is the reason why I prefer the outside 

 cellar, or cave. If your cellar under your house 

 can be partitioned off so that the apartment for 

 the bees need not lie disturbed by the constant 

 going after vegetables, etc., and so that an even 

 temperature can be maintained, such a cellar 

 is equally good with an outside cellar. The 

 trouble with the cellar under the house lies in 

 the fact that the cold and warm air. producinl 

 by the varying temperature of winter, passes 

 througli the floor of the rooms above, so that 

 no even tempernture can be kept below. If the 

 space under the tlooi-, between the sleepers, can 

 be tilled with chaff or sawdust, it will help 

 much to obviate this trouble. If the cellar is 

 dug in a side hill I would have it long and 

 narrow. ;Mine is :.'4 feet long. 7 wide, G high, 

 and is large enough to accommodate from 1(K) 

 to 125 colonies, according as they are packed. 

 From this you may know about the size you 

 want. The "cellar in the side hill has another 

 advantage, in the fact that the jjath into it will 

 be on a level with the ground outside, so that 

 the hives can be set on a spring wheelbarrow 

 and wheeled right where you wish them in the 

 cellar. This one item alone would almost or 

 quite pay for the outside cellar in the course of 

 20 years. Soiue seem to think that it is very 

 important that the cellar be dry, so that no 

 moisture nor drops of water ever collect on the 

 walls or about the bees or cellar: but all of my 

 experience goes to prove that, if the tempei'a- 

 ture can be kept between 40 and 15°. all the 

 moisture that will naturally accumulate in any 

 cellar will do no hariu. My cellar is so moist 

 that drops of water stand all about overhead 

 and on the side walls of the room, yet the bees 

 do not seem to be affected in the least by it. I 

 am coming to think nunc and more that the 

 matter of ventilation is non-iiuportant, as bees 

 winter in splendid condition with no special 

 provisio:i being made for any ventilation. By 

 way of explanation. I will say, that, when I 

 built my cellar, I constructed a sub-earth ven- 

 tilator 150 feet in length, in connection with a 

 direct upward ventilator of the same size. Eith- 

 er of these could be controlled at will, and 

 every change of weather found me changing 

 these ventilator.s. After a little I began to 

 leave the upper one closed all the while for a 

 month, while the sub-earth ventilator was oft- 

 en closed for days togetht^-. Not seeing that it 

 made any difference with the bees, I now left 

 them closed all the while; and as this gave me 

 a more even temperature in the cellar, neither 

 ventilator was opened at all during the winter 

 of 1889: so this fall, when I came to re-roof my 

 cellar with flagging, I left out the upper ven- 

 tilator entirely, allowing the sub-earth ventila- 

 tor to remain, but it has been closed all winter 

 so far. In this way I have no trouble with the 

 temperature, as it will vary only from 41 to 43° 

 degrees during the whole winter, or only two 

 degrees. If you hav<' a cellar in which the 

 temperature "falls lower than 40. I woiild put a 

 slow fire in it. or in an anteroom just off' from it. 

 so that, when there is much severe weather, 

 the temperature might be kept up at 43 to 45° if 

 possible. A change of 10° in temperature is 

 liable to make the bees uneasy, cause them to 

 go to breeding, get the diarrhea, and spring 

 dwindle. If the cellar is under a house, some 

 seem to think that a small pipe from the chim- 

 ney above the fire, running down to within two 

 inches or so of the cellar bottom, to be used in 

 a warm time, is a good thing in that it causes a 

 change of air during a warm spell, which re- 

 sults in keeping the bees quiet with a much 

 higher temperature than they would without 

 this change of air. I am not positive on this 

 point: but if I had a cellar that would run up 



