20 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 1. 



Iv used, may V-e productive of good results. 

 Dr. Milltr is one of the few who are believers 

 in such ventilators, and would not under any 

 consideration dispense with them. In each 

 of his cellars he uses a small hard-coal stove, 

 and when the b>.es become noisy, as a result 

 of low temperature or bad air, he starts a fire, 

 thus causing fresh air to be sucked in at the 

 sub-earth ventilator. After the building of a 

 small fire a circulation of air is begun, and 

 the bees soon quiet down. How much of this 

 is due to the fact that the temperature was too 

 low, or to the fact that the air was foul, or to 

 both, no one can state definitely. 



It follows, then, if the sub-earth ventilator, 

 when used intelligently, is a good thing, when 

 handled carelessly it may be worse than noth- 

 ing. Under some circumstances it is easy to 

 see how it might bring in too much cold air, 

 and reduce the temperature below the point of 

 good wintering — down to, say, 40 or even 34. 

 Under other circumstances it may be the means 

 of causing drafts; and whether or not bees are 

 affected by such things as are human beings, 

 is not easy to say. But certain it is, there is 

 some combination of circumstances resulting 

 from the use of sub-earth ventilators that is 

 not always attended with the results looked for. 



Bees have been wintered successfully in up- 

 ground repositories as well as below ground. 

 The former will have an advantage in the way 

 of dryness, but will have extremes in temper- 

 ature, because Mother Earth will not be able 

 to impart her heat to the room in which the 

 bees are. But if the up-ground structures 

 have a large number of colonies, the inside 

 heat generated by the bees themselves, as Mr. 

 W. Z. Hutchinson says, may be sufficient to 

 keep up the requisite temperature. But, say 

 what we may, it stands to reason that the up- 

 ground buildings will be subject to a greater 

 variation of temperature than those under 

 ground. 



The temperature of Mother Earth is some- 

 where in the neighborhood of 45 or 50 de- 

 grees — at least in this locality. I have run 

 thermometers down in different wells all over 

 our town. The thermometers were placed in 

 a pail, the pail let down into the well and into 

 the water. It was then raised and lowered for 

 the purpose of changing the water so that the 

 thermometer would be brought to the exact 

 temperature, or as near to it as possible, of the 

 water in the well. The pail was then raised, 

 and a reading taken off immediately. This 

 was tried on, I think, some six or eight differ- 

 ent wells in this town, with the result that the 

 temperature varied anywhere from 45 to 50 de- 

 grees. During the following summer I took 

 further readings, and found that the coldness 

 of the water of these same wells remained 

 practically the same, thus proving that snow 

 and ice above ground had very little effect on 

 the earth 20 or 30 feet down. But water from 

 soft-water cisterns varied greatly. Sometimes 

 the water was very near the freezing-point in 

 winter, and in summer it was away up to 65. 



If our winter repositories could be down in 

 the ground some 20 or 30 feet, we should be 

 able to get a temperature that is almost uni- 

 form throughout the entire winter. But that, 



of course, would be out of the question. The 

 nearest we could arrive at such a point would 

 be found in some cave that runs down into the 

 bowels of the earth some 30 or 40 feet. 



If we assume, then, that absolutely uniform 

 temperature, dryness, and good food, will re- 

 sult in good wintering, then a deep cave under 

 ground would be an ideal place. But only 

 one bee-keeper in about ten thousand would 

 be able to find such a cave on his farm or 

 probably in his vicinity, so we should have to 

 consider that scheme as impractical. But a 

 deep cellar under the dwelling-house, having a 

 packed double floor above, with a porch run- 

 ning around the cellar, might possibly hold a 

 temperature of 45 degrees. See Doolittle's 

 article in this issue. 



THE COI.ORADO STATE BEE-KEEPERS' CON- 

 VENTION; SUPPLIES, FROM THE STAND- 

 POINT OF Vi^ESTERN BEE-KEEPERS. 



After I had come to the decision that I would 

 attend the Colorado State Bee-keepers' Conven- 

 tion, I wrote to vSec. Raiichfuss my intention. 

 In acknowledgment of my letter he said he 

 was glad to know I would be able to attend, 

 and that he thought I would find this visit 

 pleasant and profitable. What he meant by 

 "pleasant and profitable " I did not quite un- 

 derstand ; but from some other references in 

 the letter I suspected tliat the words had a sort 

 of sinister meaning. Well, when I arrived at 

 tlie convention, and heard part of the discus- 

 sions, I concluded that the members thought 

 that this was a good time to give " Bro. Root " 

 and other supply manufacturers a little " shak- 

 ing tip." I was quite prepared to take my 

 medicine, either good or bad. With knowing 

 winks and significant glances they first began 

 by giving me homeopathic doses ; and when 

 they found I rather enjoyed it, and that I came 

 there for the express purpose of assimilating, 

 and that I would consider the giving of bad as 

 well as good medicine as a friendly act, they 

 gave me larger doses — more on the allopathic 

 order. I told them to " fire away," and when 

 they had got all through I would "have my 

 say," providing there was any thing left of 

 me. This invited a bombardment, to change 

 the figtire, which then commenced. 



First, the brood-frames sent out by Bro. Root 

 varied in length. Some of them liked Hoff- 

 man frames, and some didn't. Some of them 

 were decidedly opposed to having the top-bar 

 shortened. When I got down to the gist of 

 the whole matter I found that it was not the 

 frames, but the hives, that varied. The frames 

 were of the same length, because I compared 

 those made by us and one of our competitors. 

 But here was the trouble : Some of their hives 

 were longer than those made by ourselves, by 

 % inch, with the result that the brood-frames 

 made by either of us had a fashion of dropping 

 down in such hives, because the top-bars were 

 hardly long enough to bite on to the rabbets. 

 vSo far the Root Co. were clearly not to blame. 

 Next they scolded about covers that were too 

 short, and that were made by Bro. Root too. 

 Right here I had to acknowledge the corn, for 

 there was no loophole bigger than the eye of 

 a needle ottt of which I could crawl ; and I 



