200 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



moisture from the same source, and 

 from exhalations from the body. c. 

 Heat thrown off by tlie occupants." 



The object of ventilation, therefore, 

 is to remove the air tlms vitiated, and 

 so substitute pure air, of the proper 

 temperature and humidity, in its stead. 

 We are further told, " Every person 

 is surrounded by an envelope of vit- 

 iated air, and tlie thickness of this 

 envelope is dependent upon the direc- 

 tion and velocity of the air past the 

 person." This is equally true when 

 applied to a cluster of bees instead of 

 a person. The extent of the con- 

 tamination is sometimes determined 

 by the increased quantity of carbonic 

 acid, and sometimes by the increased 

 quantity of aqueous vapor found in 

 tlie air. An eminent authority says: 

 " To measure the additional amount 

 of moisture at any point is, therefore, 

 to determine the" foulness of the air 

 at the same point." It has been cal- 

 culated that the consumption of 30 

 pounds of honey, by a colony of bees, 

 will produce 140 barrels of steam, or 

 about a barrel per day while tliey are 

 in winter quarters. Suppose they 

 only consume 10 pounds, each colony 

 will evolve a barrel of steam every 

 three days, a quantity so great as to 

 make it imperative that it be venti- 

 lated out of the hive, and hustled up 

 the chimney with as little delay as 

 possible. 



In a former article, page 728, Bee 

 JouKNAL for 1882, I pointed out that 

 the conbustion of tlie saccharine part 

 of the food produces only carbonic 

 acid gas and water as excreta evolved 

 by respiration and evaporation, and 

 that the surrounding air must be in a 

 condition to take these up as fast as 

 produced, to keep the bees healthy. 

 The necessity for evaporation, and 

 the conditions under which it can be 

 carried on, may be gathered from the 

 following statements as regards our- 

 selves, and they have even greater 

 force when applied to the bees. 



" For health the body must evap- 

 orate a quantity of water within cer- 

 tain limits. Tiie amount evaporated, 

 is influe'iced by the hygrometric con- 

 dition of tlie air," * * * '-It does 

 not hurt a young, strong, healthy per- 

 son so much to draw the water out of 

 hira too rapidly, ortoo sluggishly, as it 

 does an old, feeble or sick person, but 

 the health of the most vigorous man 

 is gradually undermined by any ex- 

 tended persistence in living in air, 

 which has either a great excess or 

 or deficiency of moisture ; and one of 

 the greatest difficulties about ills, that 

 in nme cases out of ten, he does not 

 know why his health has failed." In 

 the winter of 1880-81, we had nearly 

 four months of excessive moisture in 

 the air, without any break or let up to 

 it. If there had been spells during 

 which the air was dry, so that the 

 bees could get dried out and take a 

 fresh start, it is probable they would 

 not have suffered so much. It seems 

 to be tlie long continued excess of 

 moisture that is most injurious. 



The atmosphere is the great absorb- 

 ent upon which we all have to depend. 

 As remarked by the president of our 

 Ontario convention, last fall, the so- 

 called mechanical absorbents are 



merely transmitters of moisture from 

 the bees to the surrounding air. 

 When intelligently handled, the at- 

 mosphere is the most efficient as well 

 as the cheapest absorbent bee-keepers 

 can employ. Let us examine this 

 matter a little. Air at zero is sat- 

 urated by a very small quantity of 

 vapor, and can tlien absorb no more. 

 On the 12th of December last, we had 

 a silver frost, the temperature being 

 down to S'-' at 7 a. m. The women 

 complained that the clotlies put out 

 on the line, would not dry as usual. 

 Tlie reason was, because the air was 

 already saturated, and could not 

 evaporate water from anything. — 

 Suppose we take a sponge saturated 

 with water and compress it. While 

 compressed it may hold, say an ounce 

 of water, but it will still be fully sat- 

 urated, and can take up no more. 

 But remove the pressure, and pres- 

 ently it is increased in bulk, and, al- 

 though, it still contains the ounce of 

 water, it is now thirsty for more, and 

 is capable of absorbing several ounces 

 in addition. At zero, .545 grains of 

 watery vapor will saturate a cubic 

 foot. Raise the temperature to 32^, 

 and it will become so thirsty for vapor 

 that it will require 2,126 grains to 

 saturate a cubic foot, and at 70^ its 

 greed for moisture will be so increased 

 that it will require almost 8 grains 

 per cubic foot to produce saturation. 

 Heating air does not dry it in the 

 sense of taking moisture from it; it 

 only renders it greedier for more. 



I am not forgetting the fact that, 

 althjugli the air in the hive may be 

 very damp yet, being of lower tem- 

 perature, as it permeates the cluster 

 and is breathed by the bees, its tem- 

 perature is raised, and is in this way 

 rendered capable of taking up tlie 

 water from the body of the bee. The 

 extent of this increased capacity will 

 depend upon the heat of the cluster. 

 Prof. Newport says this is sometimes 

 as low as 3(P, but I have found it to 

 be between 603 ^nd 70^ with the sur- 

 rounding air at °40. It is doubtless 

 owing to this fact that bees are able 

 to live as long as they do in badly 

 ventilated hives. But I confidently 

 make this statement, that when vapor 

 is produced by the cluster of bees 

 faster than it escapes from the hive 

 by ventilation and diffusion, or faster 

 than it is diluted by the quantity of 

 air contained in the hive, it is only a 

 question of time till the bees will 

 have to succumb to the effects of 

 moisture and pernicious gasses, and 

 the length of that time will depend 

 upon the strength of the colony, the 

 readiness with which diffusion takes 

 place through the material surround- 

 ing the bees, the quantity of air con- 

 tained in the hive to dilute the vapor 

 and gases, the extent of the openings 

 for ventilation, and tlie relative hu- 

 midity of the air entering the hive 

 from without. People often wonder 

 why some colonies die, while others 

 alongside, apparently in the same 

 condition in the fall, come through 

 all right. It is hardly possible to find 

 colonies exactly equal in all the above 

 particulars. A closer examination 

 would doubtless show differences in 

 the conditions suHicient to account 



for the different results. But we are 

 told that the humidity of the external 

 atmosphere lias no relation to bee 

 mortality. No engineer of eminence 

 will be found to make the statement 

 that the relative humidity of the ex- 

 ternal air has no relation to good ven- 

 tilation. As a matter of fact, it is a 

 factor always taken into account. In 

 laying stress on this element in the 

 case, I do not stand alone amongst the 

 bee-keepers, nor can I claim priority 

 in bringing it forward. On page 727 

 of the Bek Journal for 1882, Mr. F. 

 Delia Torre says : " When the at- 

 mosphere outside is damp, that in the 

 hive is more so, for it has the large 

 amount additional from the breath of 

 the bees added to it." On page 70 of 

 Gleanings for 1882, Mr. George Grimm 

 calls attention to this as an element 

 of importance which lias generally 

 been overlooked. He claims that the 

 natural moisture contained in the air 

 affects the honey, the bee-bread, and 

 the bees tliemselves, and frequently 

 leads to disease. Mr. James Heddon 

 says that, in liis climate, " out-doors 

 rivals the poorest cellars for damp 

 atmosphere ; in fact, it far exceeds 

 them." If we knew exactly how 

 dampitis, it might possibly furnish 

 a clue in discovering the reason why 

 dysentery " gets there " pretty badly 

 at times in spite of his skill as a bee- 

 keeper. One of the largest bee-keep- 

 ers on the continent gave it as his 

 opinion recently, that the air in the 

 neighborhood of Mt. Healthy, O., is 

 comparatively dry, and that this is 

 one reason why Mr. J. S. Hill has 

 been so uniformly successful in win- 

 tering, but, as in Mr. Heddon 's case, 

 we have no reliable data on the 

 matter. 



The following cases will serve fo 

 illustrate the application of the fore- 

 going principles, and possibly be of 

 service in helping to save some of the 

 bees now suffering from dysentery. 



On page 346, of the Bee Journal 

 for 1881, Mr. G. W. Zimmerman says, 

 that on one occasion, wlien bees were 

 dying from dysentery, his 6.5 colonies 

 were uneasy, very wet and distended. 

 He heated a room with a stove, re- 

 moved the quilts and entrance blocks. 

 " All the bees that were affected with 

 dysentery came out over the hives. 

 I did this twice from evening till 

 midnight, keeping the room dark. 

 They all dried off and clustered 

 quickly back in their hives again. 

 They iiad discharged their feces going 

 out and coming back. The result 

 was, I saved all but two queens. 



In the same volume, page 129, Mr. 

 S. ^^alentine describes how he cured 

 several colonies of dysentery by mak- 

 ing an opening 21^x4 inches, covered 

 with wire cloth directly over the cush- 

 ion. In a few days he found that 

 those that were almost helpless had 

 become dry and bright. 



On page 268 of Gleanings for 1876, 

 Eev. M. Maliin, D. D., describes a 

 case in which he found tlie whole in- 

 terior of his hives dripping wet, and 

 the bees dying through lack of venti- 

 lation. He removed the honey-boards , 

 and replaced them with pieces of 

 carpet. After a few days he found 

 the hives dry, and the bees healthy. 



