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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Ifee JoumaL 



Loss of Bees in Bee-Cellars. 



G- 31. DOOLITTLE. 



When I first began to keep bees, I 

 always wintered them in the cellar, 

 and for the first few years wintered 

 them without the loss of a single 

 colony ; but when I came to increase 

 them so that from 40 to 80 colonies 

 were put into tlje same cellar, where 

 at first I had only from .3 to 20 colo- 

 nies, I began to lose, and after quite 

 heavy losses, I gave up cellar winter- 

 ing, and wintered my bees out-of- 

 doors entirely. 



The trouble seemed to be that with 

 a large number of colonies in the same 

 cellar, tlie temperature could not be 

 kept down when there came a warm 

 time of any length in the winter. 

 During such a time the thermometer 

 would often mark 50° to 60^1 in the 

 cellar, which increase of temperature 

 would cause the bees to leave the 

 hives in large numbers, while their 

 disquietude only caused the mercury 

 to rise still higher, thus making mat- 

 ters still worse, resulting in heavy 

 losses. 



The first two or three winters after 

 I had decided to winter out-of-doors, 

 proved favorable for such wintering; 

 but one spring, when I found that I 

 had only 40 colonies left out of 130 

 which I had put into winter quarters, 

 I again began to think of cellar win- 

 tering. 



About this time Mr. James Heddon 

 wrote an essay for the Northeastern 

 Bee-Keepers' Convention, which I 

 heard read, and in which he said that 

 if we could keep the temperature 

 around our bees the same as that 

 found at 5 feet below the surface of 

 the ground, they would pass the win- 

 ter in safety, if there were sufficient 

 stores in the hive, and a goodly clus- 

 ter of bees. This may not be the ex- 

 act wording of the essay, as I quote 

 from memory ; V)ut the substance is 

 nearly, if not quite, correct. 



The idea impressed me favorably, 

 and the next fall, when I moved to 

 my present location, I dug a cellar in 

 a sidf-hill on purpose to meet the very 

 requirements Mr. Ileddon advised. 

 As ihis cellar has been described in 

 the Bee .Journal, I will not give 

 another description of it. except to 

 say that its average depth is 7 feet be- 

 low the surface of the earth ; and that 

 to keep the outside air from influenc- 

 ing the inside temperature, tliere are 

 three doors at the entrance, wliicli 

 give two dead-air spaces of 2 feet 

 each between the doors. 



Into this cellar I put about one-half 

 of my bees each year, and have used 

 it thus for the past seven winters with 

 uniformly good success till the past 

 winter, which proved Mr. II. 's idea of 

 a bee-cellar to be a good one. The 

 temperature of this cellar would be 

 50° when the bees were first put in. 



owing to the bees raising the temper- 

 ature by the disturbance resulting 

 from moving them in ; but it gradu- 

 ally lowered till at the end of three 

 weeks it was at 42°, wiiere it re- 

 mained the rest of the winter, no 

 matter whether it was 27° below or 

 60° above zero outside. 



The walls of the cellar would be 

 quite damp during all the latter part 

 of the winter, and the dead bees scat- 

 tered on tlie cellar boUom would get 

 moldy and emit a bad smell unless 

 swept up often ; but this did not seem 

 to eifect the live bees in any way, as 

 all full colonies were generally "sure 

 to come out all right. By way of ex- 

 periment, I put in some very small 

 colonies or nuclei, but found that 

 most of these would come out poor in 

 the spring, as it seemed to be too cold 

 for them. 



Wlien putting the bees into the cel- 

 lar last fall, I began to think of the 

 " high pressure" of temperature rec- 

 ommended by Ira Barber and some 

 others, and" thought, perhaps Mr. 

 Ileddon might be mistaken in his 

 ideas, even "though former winters 

 had proved him correct. The next 

 day, after putting the bees into the 

 cellar, I went in to see them, and 

 found them in a very quiet condition, 

 with the mercury at -50° above zero. 

 As several of the full colonies were 

 lynig on the outside of the hive, simi- 

 lar to the way Mr. Barber said his 

 did, I again thought of the matter. 

 and it seemed to me if I could keep 

 the temperature at just .50°, they 

 could be kept nice and quiet. 



As .50° was given by L. C. Root and 

 others as the right temperature for a 

 cellar.and was midway between what I 

 had formerly used, and Mr. Barber's 

 6.5° to 90°, 1 concluded to test the 

 matter, go, as the mercury began to 

 lower, three days afterward, I placed 

 an oil-stove between the first and sec- 

 ond doors of the bee -cellar. At first 

 it took but a small blaze to keep the 

 temperature as desired (.50°) ; but 

 as the cold outside increased, I had to 

 increase the blaze. I soon ascertained 

 that to keep the temperature at 50° in 

 all parts of the cellar, it must be at 

 77^ between the doors ; and after dis- 

 covering this, I only went inside of 

 the cellar twice every month ; once on 

 the 1st, and the next on the 1.5th. 



When I went in on Jan. 1, 1 found 

 all as usual ; bees all quiet, with a few- 

 colonies clustering on the outside of 

 the hives, to some extent, with but 

 very few dead Ijees on the cellar bot- 

 tom. So far I had not looked at the 

 bees at the top of the hive, and hap- 

 pening to think of the matter, I re- 

 moved the covering from one of them, 

 and to my surprise they were ready to 

 fly out into the light the momentthe 

 quilt was raised ; while winters before 

 they would appear like so many dead 

 bees, miless jarred or breathed" upon. 

 I returned to tlie house and told Mrs. 

 D. that I feared I had begun a costly 

 experiment ; for in this case I was 

 risking the whole lot of bees that was 

 in the cellar, while all my experiments 

 heretofore had been confined to a 

 colony or two, and would not have 

 been costly if the experiment had 

 proved a failure. 



In this case it was the " whole or 

 none," and fearing it might be the 

 •' whole," I wrote to Mr. Barber ask- 

 ing him to tell me how he kept the 

 temperature of his cellar so high, and 

 what he knew of the matter. His re- 

 ply showed that he kjiew very little of 

 the matter at all ; for he had no ther- 

 mometer in his cellar except at the 

 time the bees were put in, and again 

 upon taking them out, when, of 

 course, the temperature was greatly 

 raised by the commotion of the bees, 

 which is unavoidable at such times. 

 He did not go into the cellar from the 

 time the bees were put in until they 

 were taken out, so he was entirely 

 ignorant of what he advised others. 

 The mercury might go down to 40° 

 below zero and stay there the most of 

 the winter, and he would not know it. 



L. C. Root has a thermometer which 

 passes down into the cellar through a 

 tube so arranged that he can lower 

 and raise it at pleasure, which gives 

 him a knowledge of the temperature 

 at all times. Mr. B. should do the 

 same before he tells us of a tempera- 

 ture which is so misleading as is one 

 obtained when the commotion of the 

 bees is great enough to give a much 

 higher temperature than really exists. 



AVhen I went into the cellar on Feb. 

 1, 1 found that the clusters on the 

 outside of the hives had disappeared, 

 and the dead bees on the cellar bot- 

 tom were nearly an inch deep, with 

 others on the wing adding to those 

 already accumulated on the floor. 



If I had, at this time, taken the 

 stove out, I think I might have saved 

 nearly all of the bees, though in a re- 

 duced condition ; but I feared to do 

 so, as it seemed to me that a lower 

 temperature would be the ruin of 

 them if they were not already ruined. 



The middle of February showed 

 that the mortality was still going on, 

 while one or two colonies had all left 

 the hives, except a dozen or two dead 

 bees scattered among the combs. 

 When I went in, on March 1, the full 

 colonies were nearly all gone, while 

 the bees were nearly 2 inches deep on 

 the cellar bottom. "The most of the 

 nuclei were still alive, and now I re- 

 solved to take away the stove at all 

 events. I also put out the remnant of 

 one colony which had a choice queen, 

 and left them out, after packing them 

 with chaff. The mercury gradually 

 sank after removing the stove, till on 

 April 1 it stood at 45°, where it still 

 stood on May 1. 



Now for the result: I lost four- 

 fifths of the full colonies and the one 

 put out on March 1 being the best of 

 any of them. I also lost one-fourth 

 of the nuclei. Some few of them 

 came through well, but the majority 

 are weak, while there is not enough 

 left of all the full colonies to make 2 

 decent ones at this season of the year. 



In the above I have given the facts 

 as I found them, so the reader may 

 be warranted thereby to go cautiously 

 on trying new experiments. It would 

 have been more pleasant to have 

 passed by this, but I feel it a duty to 

 give my loss as well as prosperity, in 

 the bee-business. 



As to how the loss came about, 

 probably each reader will have his 



