NOVEMBER 15. 1914 



870 



If the bees winter better in these large cases 

 they will come out in the spring stronger, 

 and, of course, will be in better condition to 

 take care of the honey-flow that may come 

 later. A weak colony in the spring is usu- 

 ally a poor asset, as it can hardly do any 

 thing more than hold its own during the en- 

 tire season; while a big rousing colony with 

 a good queen, other conditions being equal, 

 is a money-maker. 



Now, then, if the big wintering-cases 

 insure bigger and stronger colonies in the 

 spring (and that is not proven yet), the 

 extra cost will be overbalanced in the prof- 

 its they will make their owner. 



Mr. R. r. Holtermann, whose plan of 

 winter case we are following, and which is 

 described on page 666, Sept. 1st, this year, 

 feels that (his quadruple winter case, even 

 in his cold climate, is an unqualified success. 

 He puts the bees away in the fall, and pays 

 them no further attention until along in 

 the following spring. 



There are some who will say that these 

 large winter cases can be made out of cheap 

 lumber purchased around home at a time of 

 year when the beekeeper's labor does not 

 cost much. Perhaps. But any beekeeper 

 who figures on taking it easy during the 

 winter months should bestir himself in find- 

 ing something to do. If he has no other 

 business he had better go into the business 

 of selling liis own honey in Iris local market. 

 Many do this, and find that their labor 

 brings a good return in winter as well as 

 summer. Most beekeepers cannot afford 

 to do carpenter work during the winter 

 unless they are trained to the business ; and 

 a cheajD poorly made winter ease of cheap 

 lumber will afford poor protection from 

 storms, and last but a short time. 



" The Teimperatimire ®f tike Hoiieylbee 



Elsewhere in this issue, page 902, there 

 is a review of Bulletin No. ^6, from the 

 United States Department of Agriculture, 

 on the temperature of the bee colony in 

 winter. This bulletin is by Dr. Burton N. 

 Gates, who at the time the experimental 

 work was done was Apicultural Assistant 

 in the Bureau of Entomology at Washing- 

 ton, D. C. 



" The Temperature of the Honey-bee 

 Cluster in Winter " is the title of another 

 bulletin. No. 93, by Dr. E. F. Phillips and 

 Geo. S. Demuth, of the Bureau of Ento- 

 mology, detailing some later experiments 

 with newer apparatus. While the conclu- 

 sions ari-ived at as announced in the last- 

 named bulletin do not set aside the ortho- 



dox belief and practices of b'^ekeepers gen- 

 erally, they do help to explain some of the 

 phenomena in wintering not hitherto un- 

 derstood. 



For a couple of winters back, Dr. Phil- 

 lips and Mr. Demuth have conducted a 

 series of experiments in wint:er?ng bees in 

 a constant-temperature room at the Univer- 

 sity of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. Sever- 

 al colonies variously prepared were placed 

 in this room, where the temperature was 

 lield by means of coils of pipes containing 

 a brine solution — much the same apparatus 

 that is used in cold-storage plants. On the 

 roof of the building containing this room 

 there were placed several colonies of bees 

 where the conditions of outdoor-wintered 

 colonies could be observed. A series of 

 electric thermometers or "thermo couples," 

 as they are called, were placed in these 

 colonies in the room before mentioned, and 

 on the roof outdoors. By an elaborate 

 system of wiring, these electric -thermom- 

 eters were connected to an observation 

 room in the buiLling, entirely separate and 

 distinct from the constant-temperature 

 room. Here Dr. Phillips, with his assist- 

 ant, could follow with the greatest exact- 

 nass the temperatures of every part of the 

 hiye and clusters of the several colonies 

 inside and outdoors. By these temperature 

 readings it was possible to determine the 

 exact state and size of the cluster, when it 

 moved, and the various reactions that take 

 place as the result of feeding, disturbance, 

 and the raising and lowering of the tem- 

 peratures outside the hives. The idea of 

 using electric thermometers was to avoid 

 the disturbance incident to the use of 

 mercurial thermometers that require the 

 entering of the bee-room and the opening 

 of the hive to get the readings. Moreover, 

 it would be practically impossible for an 

 observer to stay in a bee-room with a 

 temperature of 42 F. day and night, tak- 

 ing readings every fifteen minutes; and 

 even if lie could do so, the constant dis- 

 turbance would naturally cause a rise of 

 temperature that would be abo -e the actual 

 normal of a colony not so molested. 



We bad the privilege of seeing this intri- 

 cate apparatus on a recent trip to Phil- 

 adelphia; and nothing in all the liistory of 

 bee-investigation work has been so elabo- 

 rate and so nearly perfect as this. It en- 

 tailed a large expense and an enormous 

 amount of work to take the readings — a 

 work that no one individual could afford to 

 undertake. Right here is where the Gov- 

 ernment and the State can do things that 

 would be impossible for an ordinary per- 

 son. 



