384 THE ROLL OF THE SEASONS 



had anxious moments. Sometimes, so quiet and 

 without sign was the community, he thought they 

 must all be dead ; but the next inspection would 

 prove them alive and well. 



The bee-books tell us that a hive must have for 

 its winter sustenance from twenty to twenty-five 

 pounds of honey. It is further stated that a few 

 bees consume as much as twice their number, the 

 problem being to convert so much sugar into heat 

 as will keep the temperature of the hive habitable. 

 Ours, which at first had seemed a solid hive-full, 

 scarcely covered in October one full frame. The 

 four pounds of syrup they stored before November 

 was nearly gone by December 12. They had been 

 living on this as well as storing it for ten weeks, 

 which gives them little more than half a pound a 

 week, or only twelve or fourteen pounds for a six 

 months' winter. In the cold weather the stores went 

 even more slowly than that. When they had finished 

 the syrup, we gave them candy, of which they 

 consumed half a pound in thirteen days. Then we 

 moved them out of doors, the double-walled nucleus 

 hive standing within a full-sized hive, also double- 

 walled. They had cold weather, then a week of 

 extraordinary mildness, when they came out quite 

 busily, then fierce frost. Their first half-pound of 

 candy out of doors lasted them more than twenty- 

 four days, or at the rate of no more than seven 

 pounds for the winter. There was, we are informed, 

 not more than six pounds of honey in the skep 

 whence our bees were taken, the swarm being a 

 late second one. On the twenty-four pound basis, 

 then, thousands of skeps must prove tenantless this 



