1 'm: 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE, 



1305 



I r, the temperature being ran up to (57 de- 

 grees, and you will see by looking at Fig. 5 

 how the cluster looked at that time. As near- 

 ly as I could make out, that increased 24 de- 

 grees merely made the cluster a little looser, 

 for the bees did not seem uneasy at all. Fig. 5 

 was taken March 2, and the iloor of the hive 

 had not been cleaned out since the bees were 

 put in the cellar. In the majority of the 

 liives the liooi'-boards were cleaner than this 

 one. I don't know why. 



That suggests one advantage of the warm- 

 er cellar — the bees leave the hives to die. 

 ludeed, so few dead bees were left in the 

 hives last winter that it was not thought 

 worth while to clean them out the whole 

 winter, except one hive. It must be a good 

 deal better for the bees to have a clean house; 

 and if the bee-keeper doesn't like dead bees 

 ■ •n the cellar bottom he can sweep them up. 

 I don't like them, so I always sweep up two 

 to four times during the winter. Last winter 

 I first swept Feb. 20, 

 when the bees had 

 been in 93 days, 

 and took up 2^ coal- 

 hodf uls of dead 

 bees. After 24 

 more days I took 

 up 2 hodfuls more. 

 After the bees were 

 taken out, March 

 23, 3 hodfuls were 

 taken up. That 

 makes 7^ hods from 

 170 colonies for 124 

 days' confinement. 



Four of the 170 

 colonies died. I 

 don't know why. 

 The hives were as 

 empty of bees as if 

 they had swarmed 

 out. Two or three 

 colonies showed 

 signs of diarrhea in 

 spite of the good 

 air; one extr 



will be no hanging down. He, however, an- 

 swers the question by leaving us to infer that 

 pure air, or, rather, the want of it, in the 

 one case, draws the bees downward into an 

 atmosphere that is too cold for them, but 

 into which they are obliged to go in order to 

 get the requisite oxygen. Pardon us, doc- 

 tor, for interlining your thought; but if we 

 have assumed more than you intended we 

 hope you will correct us. 



It was once universally held that, when 

 bees hung in great festoons under the brood- 

 frames, this indicated a condition of perfect 

 wintering; but some events have occurred 

 during the past year or so that would seem 

 to indicate this may be erroneous. J. E. 

 Hand has made the statement that bees come 

 down to shut out the cold. In a cellar with- 

 out ventilation we have often found that, at 

 a temperature of 50 degrees, the bees clus- 

 tered down below the frames. Are they 

 thei'e because the hive is too hot? Hardly 



SPREADING OAK IN TEXAS; GIVES SHADE FOR SEVERAL HUNDRED 

 COLONIES, BUT IS TOO DENSE. 



See Bee-keephio in the Southwest, page iifi4. 



strong one, pretty bad, but the four dead 

 ones left clean hives. 

 Marengo, 111. 



[We understand from what Dr. Miller has 

 said, although he does not directly say so, 

 that he finds that a furnace in a cellai', with 

 ;i great almndance of ventilation, gives bet- 

 ter results than he formerly obtained when 

 lie had no furnace, and the cellar closed 

 most of the time; but it is fair to say that 

 he had a small stove, but only for the pur- 

 pose of raising the temperature when it got 

 too low. Under the new conditions he is 

 obliged, we take it, to keep the cellar open 

 in order to keep the temperature down to 50 

 degrees; and, incidentally, it gives the bees 

 a large amount of fresh air. 



Dr. Miller raises a very interesting ques- 

 tion—why the bees will cluster down among 

 the frames, at shown in Figs. 4 and 5, under 

 a certain temperature in the cellar, when 

 with the same temperature outdoors there 



The conclusion is that they come down t(j 

 get more air, and perhaps, as Mr. Hand says, 

 to shut out cold because the opening is too 



A short time ago a correspondent suggest- 

 ed that the ordinary summer entrances were 

 quite large enough if the air in the cellar 

 were fresh, and that bees would stay up in 

 the brood-nest and not cluster down. We 

 are inclined to think he was right. Last win- 

 ter those of our colonies that were lifted up 

 four inches from the bottom- board did not 

 seem to do as well as those with the ordina- 

 ry entrances. Let it be understood that our 

 cellar temperature was 50°, and much of the 

 time higher. The windows were open most 

 of the time, and, a great deal of the time, an 

 electric fan was forcing the air directly from 

 outdoors down the row of hives. Over Sun- 

 day, when there was no electric current on, 

 the bees would often get very uneasy ; but 

 at night, when the fan could be started, qui- 

 et would be restored in an hour or so, and 



