THE BEE IN WINTER 385 



spring, for the cottager seldom gives artificial food. 

 Or have bees the unsuspected faculty of apportioning 

 a short supply so as to make it go as far as a super- 

 abundance? The great strain upon the stores comes, 

 of course, when the young brood is being fed ; but 

 we claim to have proved, by summer experiment, 

 that less than a quarter of a pint of syrup a day 

 and a pinch of pea-flour will keep a comb of brood. 

 It is likely that in a good year the honey-bee is 

 self-supporting from the time of full sallow blossom 

 onward. 



The bee's great peril in winter is a sudden chill 

 on a tempting day. Our bees were so clamorous 

 to come out that on November 2, November 30, 

 and December 23 we took them from the dressing- 

 room and opened the hive on a warm window-sill. 

 They chose safe days, and only flew for the few 

 necessary moments. But once, when it was very 

 cold outside, a few of them escaped in the room, and 

 we had to catch them one by one and put them back. 

 When one flew against the window, it dropped as 

 though shot, and lay motionless where it fell. So do 

 they fall when, venturing out on the wrong day, a 

 drop of cold rain falls on them in full flight. If you 

 take them up and put them in some warm place, as 

 under the quilt of the hive above the cluster, they 

 will miraculously come to life again. We wished to 

 be so careful of each unit that we frequently revived 

 our " dead " bees. Even those that had been hauled 

 out to the porch by the undertaker-scavenger would 

 return to life and go back to the cluster. In most 

 cases, however, they shortly died again, and that 

 time beyond recall. But our winter bees had been 

 25 



