368 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



May 15. 



through under the doors into the open air, and 



let the water run ofif. 



But this was not all. With the thaw we had 

 rain, and soon the ceiling overhead became 

 moist also. After a little, drops began to trick- 

 le dewn here and here. They came thicker and 

 faster, until the bees were exposed to quite a 

 respectable rain-shower. I had made the (sec- 

 ond) mistake of considering the 15 inches of 

 dirt covering as a rain -proof roof. As long as 

 the ground was frozen it did very well; but 

 when it was thawed out it was no roof at all. 

 Under these extremely unfavorable conditions 

 we could not expect bees to winter, and it was 

 a wonder that any lived until spring. 



Of the 90 colonies I put into the cellar in 

 the fall, about half were dead in the spring, 

 and most of the survivors were only fractions 

 of colonies at that. 



The succeeding fall I built a board and slate 

 roof over the dirt. I imagined that all the wa- 

 ter trouble was caused by the imperfect roof. 

 This made the cellar water-proof from above, 

 but it remained the same under foot. The first 

 thaw we had that winter, water again made its 

 appearance, and the cellar remained wet the 

 rest of the winter. The loss of bees was about 

 the same as the winter before— a half or over. 



About this time I concluded that wintering 

 bees at that rate did not pay, and decided to 

 have a bee cellar if mechanical workmanship 

 could produce one. The first move was to take 

 the whole structure down and out of the way. 

 A ditch was then dug next to the bank, a foot 

 wide, commencing in the center of the back 

 end, with one foot deep, gradually increasing 

 each way to \}{ feet to the outside corners. As 

 the bottom of the cellar had already a fall of 6 

 inches from rear to front, this gave the bottom 

 of the ditch a fall of one foot to 36 ft. in length, 

 and this fall was continued to the outlets of the 

 ditch, about 3 ro'^is from the cellar. The ditch 

 was stoned up in the usual blind-ditch fashion 

 —a throat, by laying round stones on each side, 

 and flat ones to cover, and the remainder tilled 

 with small round ones just level full. 



thicker than the ditch is wide, lapped that 

 much on to the solid cellar bottom, and, with 

 the cement paint reaching well down and fill- 

 ing the bottom corner, shut oft' all possible pas- 

 sages from ditch to cellar, so that the structure 

 is positively mouse and rat proof from that di- 

 rection. 



Fig. 1. 



On this ditch a substantial 18-inch stonewall, 

 7 feet hieh, was laid, using first class mortar 

 throughout, and giving the inside a thorough 

 painting of waterlime. The wall, being G in. 



Fig. 2. 



A frame of 6x8-inch timber, with 2x8-inch 

 joists framed in at every 2 ft., rests on the wall. 

 The joists are ceiled with matched lumber be- 

 low, and covered with a double floor above, 

 forming dead-air spaces all along between the 

 joists. The impression received during school- 

 days of early life, together with what has been 

 written now and then in the different journals, 

 on the subject of a dead-air space being a non- 

 conductor of heat and cold, and consequently a 

 safe protector against atmospheric changes, led 

 me to the conclusion that my bee-cellar would 

 be perfectly safe with this protection overhead. 

 Besides, another dead-air space, formed by the 

 roof, protects the former from coming in direct 

 contact with the atmosphere. 



From the first two winters' experience I am 

 fully convinced that the dead-air-space theory 

 is greatly overestimated. It is all right so far 

 as it goes, but it does not go far enough. I 

 made these observations: 



Every thing seemed to be satisfactory until, 

 with the lengthening days, colder weather set 

 in, the mercury ranging for weeks in the neigh- 

 borhood of zero, at times going as low as 15 or 

 16 degrees below. At this time the ceiling 

 again began to show signs of moisture. The 

 moisture gradually increased ; drops formed 

 here and there, and occasionally they could be 

 heard to strike on the hives or cellar bottom as 

 might happen. Although this was not a pleas- 

 ing feature of a bee-cellar, no serious results 

 followed. Bees wintered quite well; every col- 

 ony that was put in in the fall answered to the 

 roll-call in the spring. 



The next winter brought nearly the same ex- 

 perience—not quite satisfactory, on account of 

 the moisture overhead. I then tried chaff pack- 

 ing instead of the air-spaces. By opening the 

 floor in the middle, all spaces between the 

 joists were made accessible, and these I filled 

 with oat chaff, using a tool something like a 

 stable-scraper, to pack this filling as tight as 

 possible. Since this change was made the ceil- 



