363 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Apr. 1 



the more in the contracting plan for early 

 brood-rearing. Bat don't toach this part of 

 the matter unless you wish to." 

 ^ "I do wish to; but before doing so I wish 

 to say that, with the mercury up to 92 to 95 

 in the shade in July and August, my experi- 

 ments with a self-registering thermometer 

 prove that 98° is as high as the bees ever 

 allow the temperature to go; so that we 

 have between 92 and 98" as the proper tem- 

 perature for brood-rearing, at all times of 

 the year. This answers that question about 

 the right temperature for brood-rearing." 

 k- " So it does, and I am glad to know of 

 this. I should have said 10 to 15° lower." 



"And so should I had I not conducted 

 these experiments. But if you will think a 

 moment you will see that, if a temperature of 

 80° were right, the brood must of necessity 

 be injured by a rise to 95 in the shade, for 

 no extra amount of fanning at the entrance 

 could keep it down to 80, hence the brood 

 would perish with heat. But from the cold 

 part the bees seem able to keep a tempei'a- 

 ture of 92 in the brood-nest with its going 

 many degrees below the freezing-point out- 

 side the hive." 



"Then you think that a temperature of 

 from 92 to 98° is always maintained inside 

 the hive when brood-rearing is going on?" 



" No, I did not intend to convey any such 

 thought as that. It is inside the brood-nest 

 or inside the cluster of bees that this tem- 

 perature is kept." 



" But does not the hive answer the same 

 purpose for the bees that a house does for 

 us as to keeping the brood warm?" 



"No. Here is where many make a mis- 

 take. It is well to have the hive as tight 

 and warm as possible; but it is the crust of 

 bees on the outside of the cluster that holds 

 in the warmth and allows that inside to be 

 maintained at the even temperature of 92 to 

 98°; and it is only when the bees come out 

 to where they touch the sides of the hive 

 that the walls of the same act as a hive or 

 house for the temperature inside the clus- 

 ter; and if it is cold outside, even then this 

 crust of bees forms against the wall of the 

 hive S3 no cold can penetrate inside of the 

 cluster." * 



"Bat where dummies are used do they 

 not confine the heat to the cluster?" 



" No, no more than the hive does. I used 

 to think just as you do— that it was a posi- 

 tive necessity to shut each and every colony 

 on just as many combs as they had brood in 

 when spring opened; and as they got these 

 filled with brood I added a comb at a time 

 to this brood-nest, moving out the dummy 

 each time I put in another comb till the 

 hive was filled, and rather gloried that, by 

 this constant attention and extra work on 

 my part, I was enabled to get more bees 

 and honey in a season than I otherwise 

 could. 



"And are you not of this same opinion 

 still?" 



"Well, hardly." 



"What changed your mind?" 



' ' An old bee-keeper came along, and, aft- 



er seeing me go over a few hives as you 

 have been doing and recommending, said, 

 ' Do you think that board is any warmer 

 than a comb?' I said, ' Yes.' He said, 'Al- 

 low me to put this comb in place of that 

 dummy, and you watch this hive as you go 

 along over the hives in your work, just mov- 

 ing out the comb every time, the same as 

 you do the dummies, and note results.' I 

 did; and as I saw no difference in favor of 

 either I tried more and more hives with the 

 comb in place of Ihe dummy till the result 

 led mo to leave all dummies out of hives, 

 only as I wish to use them for some purpose 

 of contraction otherwise than to advance 

 brood-rearing. The 'crust bees' are the 

 ones which hold the temperature inside of 

 the brood-nest, and all the hive does is to 

 help to keep the little heat that gets outside 

 of this crust from passing rapidly out into 

 the open air." 



"That is something hard for me to be- 

 lieve." 



"Undoubtedly. It was for me till my 

 experience drove me to it. I once cut a 

 tree having bees in it, in which the bees did 

 a thriving business for several years, ac- 

 cording to the blackness of the combs and 

 the number of old cut-down queen-cells there 

 were on the combs, and yet the bees had 

 two entrances into their cavity or hollow in 

 the tree. The entrance at the bottom was 

 about three inches in diameter, and the one 

 at the top, above the combs, was a rather 

 long hole giving a much larger opening than 

 the one at the bottom." 



" Well, that beats me." 



" Yes, and that one thing w?.s what cured 

 me of running out every cool night and con- 

 tracting the entrances to the hive, or shut- 

 ting them entirely, and then going out in 

 the morning to open them again. But it 

 did not cure me till I had carefully tested 

 the matter by closing a part during one sea- 

 son, and leaving the rest open all the 

 while." 



"Do you pretend to say that such con- 

 tracting or closing of entrances does no 

 good?" 



"The result of the trial with half the 

 yard in one way and half in the other show- 

 ed no advance of either above the other, 

 and so 1 tui-ned my attention to something 

 that did show some gain for the effort put 

 forth." 



" Then you would not even close entrances 

 with sawdust during the spring of the year, 

 as the editor of Gleanings told of Mr. W. 

 L. Coggshall doing?" 



"JMy experience says it would not pay me 

 to do so, but there is no law against your 

 trying it if you think otherwise. Only give 

 the matter a fair trial with half of your 

 colonies left without this extra work put 

 upon them." 



" Well, I will try it. But now I think of 

 the matter, I have been in the habit of us- 

 ing dumniies on all my colonies; and had it 

 not been for this talk I would have con- 

 tracted the entrances of all. I now see that 

 such a course is not the thing to ascertain 



