1906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



t: 



"Yes, I am the man, and I came over to 

 have a little talk with you on this cellar- 

 wintering matter, now that I have the cel- 

 lar built, and my bees therein." 



" How do the bees seem to be doing in 

 your new cellar? " 



* ' I went into the cellar just before I came 

 here, and found the bees very quiet." 



"That is good. As long as they keep 

 quiet you can rest assured they are winter- 

 ing well. If they are thus quiet during 

 February and March you will have reason to 

 rejoice, for those are the months which will 

 tell the story about good or bad wintering." 



"The cellar bottom seems damp to me — 

 in fact, quite so." 



"That is nothing unusual, especially the 

 first winter after any cellar is built. It will 

 be dryer in after- years ; but there has been 

 no time during the nearly thirty years I have 

 had my cellar built but that the ground on 

 the bottom has been damp and almost sticky 

 at this time of the year, or from six weeks 

 to two months after the bees have been put 

 in. The bottom is always the dryest at 

 about the time the bees are put in, and the 

 wettest about a month after they are taken 

 out. The cool air of the fall and early win- 

 ter, coming in contact with the warm soil, 

 has a tendency to make the earth in the cel- 

 lar dry at that time, and the warm air in the 

 spring striking the cold dirt makes it wet at 

 that season." 



"I see. I had not thought of that part. 

 But my cellar is so damp that the moisture 

 condenses and stands in drops in places on 

 the roof, and drops down some. Do you 

 have any thing like this ? ' ' 



' 'Yes. The flagstones covering the roof of 

 my cellar are as dry as dry can be when the 

 bees are first put in, in the fall; but after 

 the first week of the bees being in there, 

 the moisture thrown off from the evapora- 

 tion of their food begins to condense on 

 these stones, so that, at the end of a month 

 after they are set in, water collects on the 

 stone and on the walls to the cellar till it 

 runs down and often drops off on the cellar 

 bottom, and would drop on the hives did it 

 not follow the stone down to the wall, and 

 the wall down to the earth and trench 

 under the wall, where it is carried off in the 

 drain under the wall. ' ' 



"And yet your bees winter well?" 



" Always have done so, except the year I 

 kept the oil-stove in this cellar to get rid of 

 this moisture. That year I met with a big 

 loss." 



' ' I was fearful of this moisture matter. I 

 have sawdust and chaff cushions on a part 

 of my colonies, and these are damp on top 

 but dry underneath." 



"This is as I use to find matters when I 

 wintered with cushions on, as I did for many 

 years. This comes about from the moisture 

 from the bees being driven up through the 

 cushions and stopping, to a certain extent, 

 when it reaches the cooler air of the cellar, 

 on the same principle that we find the tops 

 of such cushions covered with frost after a 



zero spell of weather where the bees are 

 wintered outdoors. ' ' 



" Do you think that is the cause of this? 

 I had thought that these cushions were tak- 

 ing on the dampness from the cellar. ' ' 



"If that was the cause they would have 

 become damp at once on the hives being put 

 in the cellar. What is the temperature of 

 your cellar?" 



' ' Forty- two degrees. ' ' 



' ' That is pretty cool for a damp cellar. 

 Can't it be made to run a little higher in 

 some way? The weather has been so mild 

 so far this winter that mine has not fallen 

 as low as usual thus far, the mercury keep- 

 ing at from 47 to 48 degrees, while general- 

 ly it has fallen to some 45 or 46 by the latter 

 part of December. " 



" I have two ventilators for the cellar — 

 one at the back and one at the front end. 

 The back one has been closed for some time, 

 and I closed the front one to-day. Would 

 you leave both closed? " 



' ' I certainly would till a temperature of 

 45 was reached. When it goes higher than 

 that, if it ever does, you might open them, 

 if you so desire; but I have opened no ven- 

 tilators to my cellar for 18 years. In fact, 

 there have been no ventilators for this cel- 

 lar for the last ten years, and the bees have 

 wintered full better since all ventilators 

 have been done away with." 



' ' Well, I will try leaving my ventilators 

 closed for a while, at least, or till I see good 

 reasons for opening them. But how about 

 mold? does it ever form in your cellar? And 

 does it do any harm as long as the inside of 

 the hives are dry? " 



"Patches of mold are often seen on the 

 roof and walls of my cellar, especially to- 

 ward spring, when there will be patches of 

 mold as large, and nearly as deep, as your 

 hat, yet I can not see that they do any harm. 

 How about dead bees? Are your bees dying 

 much?" 



' ' There are no dead bees on the cellar 

 bottom to speak of, and the few that have 

 dropped down on the bottom- board below 

 the frames are dry, with no appearance of 

 mold." 



"That is good, and shows that the bees 

 are wintering well thus far, and I hope and 

 expect they will continue to do so, if you 

 can keep a temperature three or four de- 

 grees higher. ' ' 



' ' I put in two bags of fine dry sawdust 

 from our planing-mill, where they resaw 

 lumber, to-day. Would you put in such oc- 

 casionally?" 



"That will be a good thing in keeping 

 your earth floor dry, and keep the dead bees 

 from being mashed on the floor, as well as 

 save the bother of sweeping up the dead 

 bees. When I had such sawdust I put it on 

 (a two-bushel bag at a time), once a month, 

 when, after the bees were out in the spring, 

 the whole was cleared out." 



"I was in the cellar fifteen or twenty 

 minutes with a lantern, and only two or 

 three bees came out to it. Should any have 

 come?" 



