848 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



all the prizes offered at local shows during the 

 past five years. Some 1-4,000 \hi. of honey, 

 from 50 colonit-s, proves that ihey aie bied for 

 business as well as beauty. 



MAIUXG QUEENS. 



On page 335, May 1, 1 agree entirely with 

 your remarks about comb honey being appre- 

 ciated by bees when passing through tlie mails, 

 and I hope you will continue to exp^rim^nt in 

 that line. During the past two seasons I have 

 had eight queens from you and DooUttle; and 

 although they weie all dead I noticed that in 

 each case the whole of the comb honev was 

 consumed, and in one the queen was buried in 

 the cells. Evidently her last effort had been 

 to obtain more honey, and she died in the at- 

 tempt. 



I liave come to the conclusion that the ven- 

 tilation is of more vital importance than fec'l. 

 The variation from 100° and higher, when 

 crossing the equator, requires to be provided 

 for as well as a probable 40° before leaving 

 your continent. Try again. 



North Rockhampton, Queensland, Aus. 



BEES FREEZING TO DE\TH 



Oiiestion. — I have five colonies of bees this 

 fall, and wish to know, through the columns 

 of GLE.\NrNGS, whether there i^ any danger 

 of their being frozen to death if I leave them 

 outdoors, where the mercury sinks as low as 

 thirty degrees below zero some winters. I am 

 told that bees often freeze to df ath in this cold 

 climate; and if such is the case, I fear I may 

 not be able to winter them. 



Anscver. — People of: en say to me. "Don't 

 your bees freeze to death out here in the cold 

 all winter?" and I sometimes read in agricul- 

 tural papers about bees freezing to death; but 

 I always consider such talk as fallacious when 

 it is spjkenof in connection with a full c )lo- 

 nv of bees Individual bees, or even a cluster 

 of from fifty to one hundretl, when separated 

 from the main cluster, often freeze to death, 

 the isolated individual b?e always succiunbing 

 to the cold with a temperature lower than for- 

 ty above zero, unless it waiTns up within 3n 

 hours after the bee ceases to move; but a good 

 colony of bees, in a good hive, with p]e^t^ of 

 stores at their co:nmand, never dies from cold 

 in a sense that can in any way be interpreted 

 that they froze to death If we investigate 

 this matter we shall find that, while it is pos- 

 sible to freeze nearly all animal life by expos- 

 ure to a very low temper.- lure, the bees seem 

 capable, with plentv of stores near at hand, to 

 stand any amoimt of cold, so long as food re- 

 mains within easy reach. To be sure, the bees 

 on tlie outside of the cluster may become 

 somewhat stiffened with cold; but those with- 

 in are nearly as brisk and lively as in summer. 

 The lamented M. Quinby, whose authority is 



rarely ever questioned, knew this to be a fact 

 when he said that the bees inside the cluster, 

 on a zero morning, could fly as readily as in 

 July, should the cluster be suddenly thrown 

 apart. Then Eli^ha Gallup, who ^ave us so 

 many excellent articles on bees during the lat- 

 ter sixties and early seventies, speaking of a 

 winter in Upper Canada, says, "The ther- 

 mometer for sixty days in succession was not 

 above 10° below zero, and for eight of these 

 days the mercury was frozen; yet my bees, in 

 box hives, with a two-inch hole at the top, 

 and the bottom plastered up tight, came 

 through in excellent condition." See Amer- 

 ican Bee Journal, Vol. 5, page 33. While 

 bees here in Central New York were never put 

 to so severe a test as that, vet 1 have it record- 

 etl in my diary where tlie mercury went as 

 low as 3u° below z ro one wdnter and as low 

 as 28° below several tinit s ; j-et, so far as I 

 could see, the b.-es did not materially suffer 

 from this extreme cold. From experiments 

 conducted with a self-registering thermome- 

 ter during several winters I have found that, 

 with a temperature of 20° below zero in the 

 outside air, a temperature of 45 to 46 degrees 

 above is maintained within the hive, willi the 

 bulb of the thermometer touching the outside 

 bees of the cluster, while an equal number 

 of experiments with the thermometer placed 

 in the center of the cluster of bees gave a 

 warmth of from 03 to 04 degrees above zero, 

 wdien it was from 10 to 25 below outside; thus 

 showing that the inside bees of the cluster 

 were very far from freezing. Tote-t this mat- 

 ter more ihoroughly, and prove the thing be- 

 yond doubt, I touk a colony one evening, 

 when the mercury stood at ten below zero, 

 and suspended the hive about two f 'et from 

 the bottom -board, taking off all covering from 

 the top of the hive, so they were the same as 

 if hung in the open air, so far as bottom and 

 top were concerned ; and as the bees did not 

 come out so as to touch the hive in any place, 

 they were ver\- nearly so at the .'■•ides. They 

 were left thus all night, during which the 

 mercury had gone as low as sixteen below 

 zero, yet the next morning the bees were all 

 right, although the cluster had contracted till 

 it was little more than half as large as it was 

 the night before. Had they been thus left till 

 they had consumed all the stores inside the 

 cluster, undouhtedh' they would have suc- 

 cumbed to the cold; but in that event it would 

 not be a case of freezing to death, but of starv- 

 ing; while the freezing came in as an after- 

 consideration. 



Since trying these experiments I have come 

 to the conclusion that the freezing of bees, 

 when in a normal condition, is an impossibil- 

 it\', and that all talk about such freezing is 

 merely idle vaporings, and that the finding of 

 bees dead and frozeir only gave proof that the 

 freezing was an effect coming after death, pro- 

 duced by some other cause tlian cold, such as 

 starvation, bee-diarrhoea produced by long 

 confinement, etc. 



This talk about full colonies freezing to 

 death renunds me of the stor}- about the poor 

 church that wanted some hymn-books. They 

 needed the books badly, but did not know 



