THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



591 



The excessive death rate which oc- 

 curred in my dry, well-ventilated iind 

 capacious cellar, as before narrated, 

 occurred alike with bees that had and 

 had not upward ventilation. The 

 atmosphere in this cellar, however, 

 ■was so dry that no wet or moldy combs 

 were found in any of the hives, not 

 even those with the least ventilation. 

 Several hives of bees were tried upon 

 the plan of no upward, but excessive 

 lower ventilation ; every one of those 

 died ; the only one that came through 

 in perfect, or even good condition, of 

 the three survivors out of 4f), was one 

 summered at a distance, and brought 

 into the cellar in mid-winter. This 

 colony sat on a large box with three 

 others, in the same kind of hive, with 

 precisely the same kind of ventilation; 

 and while the other three died with 

 dysentery in its worst form, weeks be- 

 fore spring arrived, this colony came 

 out in perfect condition, with about 

 one-half dozen bees dead on the bot- 

 tom board. I cannot yet see how the 

 humidity theory can cover this ease, 

 and maiiy others well-known to the 

 readers and myself. 



Have our readers not noticed that 

 dysentery and breeding are very apt 

 to keep company with each other ? 

 Does humidity, cold and continement, 

 " producing dysentery " and " moldy 

 €ombs," induce bees to breed in win- 

 ter V Is it not reasonable to suppose 

 that the handling and consumption of 

 pollen might induce breeeding, or that 

 a disposition to breed, necesitating 

 the manipulation of pollen, would be 

 productive of dysentery ? 



Mr. Cornell slurs my use of the term 

 " guess." Is it not as modest to use 

 that term as to assert that his theory 

 of the production of dysentery is old 

 and well established, and yet we all 

 lose our bees with that disease when- 

 ever it rages in our locality V Should 

 he, or both of us, turn out to be mis- 

 taken, would it not be as well If he 

 had used the same expression V 



Mr. CorneiFs request to put the bees 

 on combs of sugar, came too late, and 

 after my bees were all prepared for 

 winter, "but, fortunately, I have over 

 40 colonies prepared just in that way, 

 and if one of them have the dysentery 

 that will end the matter with me, and 

 I will cheerfully join Mr. Cornell in 

 •doing all I can to find the disease am- 

 bushed on the road he is following. 



Last winter, with some i5 out of 50 

 liives, some 14 inches deep, I tried the 

 experiment of boring holes in the back 

 end, producing a circidation of air 

 across the bottom-board, placing the 

 hives above snow level. 1 succeeded 

 in getting the circulation, but it 

 seemed to make no difference regard- 

 ing disease — some had dysentery, and 

 some had not. For more than eight 

 years I experimented on no small 

 scale with different methods of venti- 

 lation, both in-doors and out, and 

 «ould never see that that was the cue 

 to the malady. 



Dr. Southard, of Kalamazoo, a clear- 

 headed, close-observing, and quite ex- 

 tensive honey-producer, experimented 

 two or three years with out-door pack- 

 ing, between leaving the board cover 

 tight upon the hives, packing over this 

 with straw and chaff, and removing 



the cover, in its stead using burlap 

 with the same packing over this. 

 There is quite a difference in the hu- 

 midity in the interior of shallow hives 

 where in the one case it has only loose 

 cloth and chaff to obstruct its egress, 

 and in the other an inch of wood, two 

 coats of paint, and bee-glue promis- 

 cuously distributed over its surface 

 and to seal the joints. 



The Doctor is radically in favor of 

 the tightly sealed hives, and so uses 

 them. Two or three years before I 

 tried the same experiment during two 

 winters, and while colonies died both 

 ways, I fanced I preferred the up- 

 ward ventilation. Does it not look 

 as though these experiments on our 

 part missed tlie true cause altogether'? 

 I would be pleased to hear from the 

 Doctor on the subject. The ordinary 

 reasoner will see at a glance that 

 comparing one man's success with 

 another in a different field, must be 

 short-sighted or unfair. In this lo- 

 cality, bordering Indiana and the 

 marshy region, we have an excess of 

 bee bread m our hives nearly all the 

 year around, and especially in the 

 fall, from various fall weeds, and 

 dysentery rages in its worst form, 

 there having been but one season in 

 fifteen when our apiary was entirely 

 clear from it. This has given me a 

 good chance to study its nature, 

 though, after all, I may be mistaken. 



Mr. Corneil's article, like its pred- 

 ecesssors, is prized by me, for whether 

 he has the true theory or not, I al- 

 ways feel as though I know some- 

 thing more of the laws govening 

 human health and proper ventilation 

 after reading them. 



Dowagiac, Mich., Nov. 12, 18S.3. 



K»ir the American liee JoumaL 



The Cause of Swarms Absconding. 



W. H. STEWART. 



Under different circumstances, how 

 different is the behavior of honey 

 bees. At times, it would seem that 

 their knowledge was almost complete. 

 At other times, and under the most 

 favorable circumstances, it would 

 seem that they were void of even the 

 least degree of discretion. 



For many years, many of the most 

 careful and and close-observing men 

 have studied their wants, habits and 

 mode of living ; and have prepared 

 for them almost every conceivable 

 form and size of hive, in some, of 

 which the bees find more and greater 

 advantages than they can find in any 

 hollow tree, or among the rocks ; yet 

 we often see them leaving a hive of 

 the moat approved style — turn fugi- 

 tives, and abscond for the woods or 

 caves in the rocks, where we often 

 find them laboring under the most 

 discouraging conditions. 



Sometimes we notice that young 

 swarms of bees seem to gladly accept 

 of an old box or nail keg, and at other 

 times will, in a few hours after being 

 hived in one of our best hives, come 

 whirling out with a perfect rush, and 

 leave in spite of all that we give them. 



Now, the question is, why do they 

 thus behave 'f 



I will give a little of my experience 

 with bees, and in doing so, will give 

 one reason why bees thus behave— a 

 reason that I have never noticed in 

 bee books or papers. 



I began to try to keep bees about 40 

 years ago, but many times I failed to 

 keep them. When we only knew how 

 to increase by natural swarming, and 

 using only the box hive, many times 

 two or more young swarms would 

 cluster together on the same limb of 

 a tree, and all would have to be hived 

 in the same box together. That, of 

 course, would fill an ordinary hive. 

 That style of hive usually had two, or 

 perhaps three cross- sticks through 

 near the center of the hive— not for 

 the purpose of supporting this heavy 

 mass of bees, but for a support of the 

 heavy combs that were to be built 

 from top to bottom of the box, which 

 were sometimes quite tall. 



But hold ! here comes a fine young 

 Italian swarm rushing out of a Langs- 

 troth hive, in which they were hived 

 yesterday. Well, we went to stop 

 them, and thought we were smart 

 enough to do so ; I have detained 

 other swarms in days of yore, by get- 

 ting to them before the queen had got 

 out, and lifting the hive from the 

 bottom-board, and setting it down, 

 tight on the grass, and thus detaining 

 what remained in the hive, until those 

 that were out began to come back 

 pretty lively ; then I put the hive in 

 place again, and all would go well. 

 But this was a young queen with 

 wings not clipped, and she was out 

 before I got the hive closed (as above), 

 and away she went for the woods with 

 her half of the swarm, and I put the 

 half that I detained in their old origi- 

 nal home. They were hived on one 

 frame of young brood from their orig- 

 inal home, 4 frames of empty combs, 

 and enough more frames of foundation 

 to fill a one-story Langstroth hive, 

 new, clean, nice, shaded, and with 

 plenty of ventilation at the bottom ! 

 Why did they leave V Had they a 

 plurality of queens ? 



I was going to tell why young swarms 

 leave their new home, and, as I am 

 writing here on my porch and watch- 

 ing the bees at the same time (doing 

 double duty), out comes those crazy 

 bees— the first swarm that I havetlius 

 lost in the last 16 years. This is the 

 first swarm that has ever left a hive 

 that I had furnished with a full set of 

 combs of foundation, and I was about 

 to express an opinion that they would 

 not leave a hive thus furnished. I 

 never had one leave where all the 

 frames were filled with foundation, 

 but this had one brood comb. 



Sometimes we think that we have 

 became masters of the situation, and 

 then some little circumstance turns up 

 that satisfies us that there are some 

 things that we have not yet learned. 

 But I have learned one reason why 

 young colonies leave their hive, and 

 i will tell it. 



Some 16 years ago, on .Tuly 4, 1 stood 

 near a colony of young bees that I had 

 hived the day before. It was very hot 

 weather, and I was fearful that my 

 bees would leave. It was a very large 

 colony, and I had found that those 



