WINTERING BEES. 335 



CHAPTER XXI. 



WINTERING BEES. 



As soon as frosty weather arrives, bees cluster com- 

 pactly together in their hives, to keep warm. They are 

 never dormant, like wasps and hornets (p. 110), and a 

 thermometer pushed up among them will show a Summer 

 temperature, even when, in the open air, it is many 

 degrees below zero. When the cold becomes intense, 

 they keep up an incessant tremulous motion, in order to 

 develop more heat by active exercise ; and, as those on 

 the outside of the cluster become chilled, they are re- 

 placed by others. 



As all muscular exertion requires food to supply the 

 waste of the system, the more quiet bees can. be kept, the 

 less they will eat. It is, therefore, highly important to 

 preserve them, as far as possible, in Winter, from every 

 degree, either of heat or cold, which will arouse them to 

 great activity. 



The usual mode of allowing them to remain all Winter 

 on their Summer stands, is, in cold climates, very objec- 

 tionable. In those parts of the country, however, where 

 the cold is seldom so severe as to prevent them from 

 flying, at frequent intervals, from their hives, perhaps no 

 better way, all things considered, can be devised. In 

 such favored regions, bees are but little removed from 

 their native climate, and their wants may be easily sup- 

 plied, without those injurious effects which commonly 

 result from disturbing them when the weather is so cold 

 as to confine them entirely to their hives. 



If the stocks are to be wintered in the open air, the} 



