432 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



the equivalent of fifteen square inches in my 

 own hives), when once adopted by a bee- 

 keeper is not likely ever to be abandoned. 

 I would not lead any one to think that a 

 large entrance will pull bees through the 

 winter when other essentials are lacking, for 

 one has to meet and cope with many difficul- 

 ties in this matter of wintering bees; but it 

 will serve to take away the moisture from 

 inside the hive sufficiently well to keep the 

 bees in good health and quiet. It should be 

 said that a large entrance should never be 

 accompanied by upward ventilation, although 

 absorbent cushions may be used. There 

 must be tight covers so that no serious loss 

 of heat takes place; but there should be 

 ample circulation of the cold air under the 

 Jrames. If the air under the frames is fre- 

 quently changed, diffusion will keep the air 

 above dry. 



Cellar winterers have long since found that 

 •colonies do best if the entrance be extremely 

 large, or the hive-bottom left off entirely. 

 It cost many, many colonies of bees in late 

 ■winter, and many more by "spring dwin- 

 dling" after the hives were set out, before 

 bee-keepers made this most important dis- 

 covery: is it to cost an equal number of col- 

 onies before out-of-door winterers learn the 

 same lesson? No, for God has given us the 

 winds out of doors, and Nature can help the 

 bees outside with the brisk winter winds, 

 while the stagnant air of the cellar is out 

 of reach of Boreas. 



Allow me to return to the carbon dioxide 

 and the water vapor thrown off by the bees. 

 The former is a gas almost twice as heavy 

 as air, and naturally sinks toward the bot- 

 tom of the hive, and small indeed must be 

 the entrance that will not take care of it. 

 Far different is water vapor, which is only 

 two-thirds as heavy as air, and hence tends 

 to find its way to the upper portions of the 

 interior of the hive. If the entrance is small 

 this vapor must condense, or escape slowly 

 upward or diffuse slowly downward. If the 

 entrance is amply large to admit of a rapid 

 exchange of air below, the diffusion of the 

 vapor will be comparatively rapid. 



The great advantage of a dry hive over a 

 wet one in winter is especially noticeable 

 when a day of moderate temperature occurs. 

 The dry hive warms up in a short time, while 

 the wet one may not get warm at all. Bees 

 can take flight from a dry hive on days when 

 it would scarcely be possible for bees to fly 

 from wet hives. To understand this, one 

 must consider the high specific heat of water. 

 It will then be seen that a warm winter day 

 will be nearly passed before the wet hive is 

 sufficiently warmed for bees to be roused to 

 flight, though the bees from dry hives are 

 flying before noon. Again, it will require an 

 unusual winter day to warm the wet hive so 

 that bees can readily shift to unconsumed 

 stores, whereas in the dry hive bees readily 

 shift on almost any sunshiny day. 



After twenty-one years of numerous and 

 varied experiments in the wintering of bees, 

 accompanied by a most careful observation 

 of effects and search after the causes of 



these effects, I have arrived at the results 

 which I have outlined in this article. I would 

 esteem it a favor for any one to point out 

 an error in my deductions. I would urge 

 every experimenter to test by actual trial the 

 direful effects of moisture upon bee health. 

 Above all, I would urge upon the devotees 

 of the small winter entrance to be less prod- 

 igal of their advice to use such; for they 

 are encouraging the adoption of a method of 

 wintering bees which may some winter wipe 

 out whole apiaries— a method which is usu- 

 ally safe, but sometimes full of calamity— a 

 method which rarely gives best results. 

 Norwich, Conn. 



[I believe the foregoing to be orthodox 

 from the standpoint of practical bee keeping 

 in the main; but if there is danger that there 

 are some who will go too far with small en- 

 trances for outdoor wintering, there is equal 

 danger that others may make their entrances 

 too wide. For over thirty winters we have 

 wintered from 250 to 500 colonies and nuclei 

 outdoors. Over and over again we have prov- 

 ed to our own satisfaction that an entrance too 

 large is quite liable to result in the death of 

 a colony, even before the approach of spring. 

 Some five or six w nters ago we tested the 

 matter over again, and found that in nearly 

 every case where a colony had an entrance 

 i deep by the width of the hive they either 

 died outright or were so weak as to be prac- 

 tically good for nothing. A strong colony, 

 according to our experience, will give best 

 results with an entrance |, by 8 inches wide. 

 A correspondingly weaker colony must have 

 an entrance correspondingly reduced in size. 

 We have some weak colonies with entrances 

 only 2 inches wide by | deep that winter nice- 

 ly; yet this entrance is sufficiently large to 

 carry off the excess of moisture. The only 

 danger of a small entrance is that dead bees 

 may clog it in late spring In that case the 

 colony will die because of the excess of moist- 

 ure, the excess being absorbed in the bowels, 

 and causing dysentery exactly as you de- 

 scribe. In saying this I wish to subscribe 

 fully to your scientific deductions on the 

 point. We make it a practice to examine 

 the entrances occasionally; and if any are 

 clogged, to rake them out.— Ed.] 



AVERAGE CONSUMPTION OF HONEY OF A 

 FAMILY, 



E. P. Coltrin says, p. 96, his family of five 

 bid fair to consume 300 lbs. of honey, and asks 

 if this is a fair average. This is 60 lbs. each, 

 or 5 gallons. I do not know the average, 

 but doubt its reaching 10 lbs. in the United 

 States. For the past 20 years my family of 

 two have used an average of two five-gallon 

 cans, or 120 lbs. ; and when we had cream 

 of our own we used 180 lbs. I am the only 

 one in my family who eats honey. A small 

 portion was used in canning fruit and mak- 

 ing jam. I never use sugar for any pur- 

 pose, as I prefer honey. 



Santa Barbara, CaL* Delos Wood. 



