THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



557 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Humidity, Cold, Confinement and 

 Pollen— their Relation to Wintering. 



S. COKNBIL. 



Ill replying to some of Mr. Heddon's 

 observations on tlie above matters, I 

 shall be as brief as possible. 



On page 464 of the present volume 

 of the Bee Journal, ilr. Heddon 

 states that bees have often been taken 

 out of special repositories perfectly 

 drenched with dampness, and the 

 combs covered with blue mold, but 

 with the bees perfectly healthy. I 

 doubt the correctness of the latter part 

 of the statement. I think Mr. S. P. 

 Newman is right when he says," If the 

 . hive becomes damp and the combs 

 moldy the colony cannot be healthy." 

 Mr. Heddon frequently refers to an 

 occasion when Mr. Balch'g bees were 

 taken out as described above, The 

 probability is .that they were removed 

 just in time to save them by giving 

 tliem an opportunity to dry out, in dry 

 air. Mr. Balch is "represented as be- 

 lieving that moisture is good for bees 

 and that ventilation is death. In the 

 winter of lSSO-1, owing to steady coW 

 and consequent co)!ji»e»nejit they had no 

 chance to gecdried out all winter, and, 

 in consequence, he had lost 149 out of 

 1.50. Mr. Heddon states that Mr. 

 Balch's damp cellar, where the bees 

 did not die, was colder than his own 

 dry one where 4-5 out of 48 did die. 

 Had he given us the accurate temper- 

 ature and humidity of both cellars, 

 the facts would have been of some 

 value. As it is, he proves nothing. 



He states that the dampest winters 

 were the warmest ones. The records 

 of the Signal Service show that the 

 winters of 1874-5 and 1880-1 were both 

 the coldest and dampest of any during 

 the last decade. They were also the 

 most disastrous to bee-keepers, in 

 wintering. He says that "cold " and 

 " continement " as causes of dysentery 

 have both fallen to the ground, and 

 that when he lias shaken up the 

 " humidity " theory a little more, it 

 will tumble with them. Will it, in- 

 deed? We shall see. "Humidity," 

 " cold " and " continement " as factors 

 in wintering bees are based on facts 

 in physical science, ascertained and 

 established long before Mr. Heddon 

 or myself appeared on the scene, and 

 will remain unshaken long after we 

 have passed away and are forgotten. 



On page 391 of the Bee Journal 

 for 18S2, Mr. Heddon correctly shows 

 how the water produced by the assimi- 

 lation of food taken in winter is elimi- 

 nated by the bees, except that he 

 attributes it all to transpiration, when 

 in reality the greater part of it escapes 

 by exhalation. This is the Hrst fact, 

 and I remark in passing, that just 

 there Mr. Heddon was at the very 

 verge of discovering the root of the 

 whole matter. One step more and he 



had it. The step which he did not 

 take is my second fact, viz : that in 

 a saturated atmosphere of the same 

 temperature as the bee, there can be 

 no evaporation, consequently no ex- 

 cretion of moisture, either by trans- 

 spiration or exhalation. This is where 

 humidity comes in as a factor. A lit- 

 tle bit of tlieorv deduced from this 

 fact and from what is known regard- 

 ing other animals, is that since the 

 bees cannot eliminate the water pro- 

 duced by the consumption of food, 

 they will be in an abnormal condition, 

 and we have Mr. Heddon as authority 

 for saying that it is when bees are 

 " out of liormal condition " that they 

 eat pollen to excess, (if they ever do 

 so). 



The third fact is, if the temperature 

 of the colony be say 88, and the humid- 

 ity 80, out of a possible 100, a sudden 

 drop in the temperature of 7 degrees 

 will cause saturation of the air and 

 condensation of vapor in the hive, and 

 the air will remain saturated at the 

 new temperature as long as the condi- 

 tions continue unaltered. This is 

 where cold comes in as a factor. 



Dr. Wetherill, of the Smithsonian 

 Institution at Washington, says : 

 " The rapidity of the evaporation of 

 the body depends principally upon the 

 low relative humidity of the air 

 at a high temperature and upon the 

 maintenance of this condition in the 

 neighborhood of the body by the action' 

 of currents of air. In an atmosphere 

 saturated with moisture the evapora- 

 tion would be reduced to a minimum 

 and would be practically nothing in 

 such air having the same temperature 

 as the body. Although we may bear 

 with impunity these extremes for a 

 short period, a pemstence in such con- 

 ditions would be fraught with danger." 

 In the same way bees may bear such 

 conditions for a short time without 

 apparent injury, but when they come 

 to be confined for several months with- 

 out a chance to get dried out, it is not 

 surprising that they have to succumb. 

 This is where confinement comes in as 

 a factor. 



When ventilation is imperfect there 

 is undoubtedly another factor in the 

 case, namely, carbonic acid gas, but 

 owing to the difficulty in detecting it, 

 ordinary observers cannot know much 

 about its proportion in the air. A 

 superabundance of it acts in about the 

 same way, in preventing the escape 

 of carbonic acid, as aqueous vapor 

 does the escape of water from the 

 body of the bee. Here is what Kuss, 

 a German author, says on tlie matter : 

 " If an animal be shut up in a conHned 

 space, and a sufficient quantity of oxy- 

 gen be admitted while the carbonic 

 acid produced by respiration is allow- 

 ed to accumulate, the animal will die 

 as soon as the proportion of this gas be- 

 comes toogreat. Not that carbonic acid 

 is poisonous, only that the excess of 

 this gas, or its toogreat pressure in the 

 air, hinders the egress of that which 

 is in the blood ; the blood is then pre- 

 vented from collecting the gas evolv- 

 ed from the combustion of the tissues, 

 and the respiration of the latter be- 

 comes impeded." Want of oxygen 

 also probably plays a part, but if we 

 bear in mind that "the essential point 



of good ventilation is constant change 

 of air," and make our arrangements 

 accordingly, we need have no fears as 

 to the supply of oxygen. The degree 

 of humidity is taken by the most care- 

 ful writers on ventilation to be a cor- 

 rect measure of the purity or the air 

 of an apartment. This can readily be 

 determined by the careful use of a 

 hygrometer, which anyone of ordinary 

 intelligence can soon learn to use with 

 sufficient accuracy. 



Pollen. — One miglit reasonably 

 expect that after discussing this ques- 

 tion for nearly three years, its advo- 

 cates would surely have shown beyond 

 doubt that bees sick with dysentery 

 have consumed excessive quantities 

 of pollen. There is plenty of asser- 

 tion but nothing approaching a proof of 

 the fact. But suppose bees do at times 

 eat unusually large quantities of pol- 

 len, the next enquiry is, why do they 

 sometimes eat too much and at other 

 times none or only enough for good 

 health ? Mr. Heddon's answer is that 

 they eat it either because they do not 

 like their li(iuid stores, or, on account 

 of the pollen floating in the honey, 

 consuming it is unavoidable; or else 

 they are confined by cold till the 

 honey within reach is consumed and 

 they must eat it or starve. Ttiis the- 

 ory will not cover the facts of ordinary 

 observation, as I shall presently show. 

 Then, too, it should be shown that 

 excessive eating of pollen causes dys- 

 entery. If it were agreed on all hands 

 that the " dry feces " theory is a mis- 

 take, and that bees discharge their 

 feces only in a liquid state, it might 

 be considered as giving a certain dis- 

 tance in that direction. But I think, 

 notwithstanding Prof. Cook's investi- 

 gation of the matter, there is a pretty 

 general belief, amongst bee-keepers, 

 that bees do void their feces in a dry 

 state, when in perfect health, while in 

 winter quarters. 



In the following case, pollen as the 

 primary cause of the loss is entirely 

 out of the question, and yet it is only 

 one out of hundreds of similar cases 

 occuring all over the country every 

 winter. , , ,„ 



In the fall of 1879 I purchased 10 

 colonies, in box hives, from a Mr. 

 Webster, residing some seven miles 

 out of town. I brought them home 

 in the latter part of October, and 

 after sitting in my garden a few days, 

 during which they Hew, they were 

 stored in my cellar with about twenty 

 other colonies of my own. Mr. Web- 

 ster had in all 42 colonies, and my 10 

 were about equal to the remaining .32. 

 He advised me when placing them in 

 the cellar to raise the hives an inch or 

 so above the bottom board and to pull 

 out one of the plugs of rags which 

 stopped the holes in the top, stating 

 that he had always done so and suc- 

 ceeded well. I had read a very inter- 

 esting and instructive essay on " In- 

 sect Respiration and Bee Culture," in 

 which everything seemed so plain and 

 reasonable that when the writer said, 

 before winding up, "our bees will 

 need scarcely any air, and hence no 

 ventilation, either upper or lower," I 

 adopted that as my ci-eed on ventila- 

 tion of hives and held to it for several 

 years. Another writer, too, advised 



