314 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



while two or three are better. A board or 

 cloth may be used overhead next the bees, 

 but leave a vent somewhere to pass off mois- 

 ture. 



If the climate is such that a damp cold 

 prevails with extreme low temperature and 

 long continued, winter in the cellar with 

 plenty of ventilation, and a temperature not 

 too low, say 45° or over. The more damp 

 the cellar the higher must be the temper- 

 ature. 



In the spring, when brood-rearing is want- 

 ed, is the time to economize heat. Last 

 year, brooding stopped early. In January a 

 warm spell set some colonies to brood-rear- 

 ing. A few matured their brood, and the 

 young had cleansing flights. Such colonies 

 were the easiest to spring. Others that had 

 very old bees, and did no breeding until the 

 last of February and first of March, had hard 

 work to pull through. Some were so much 

 weakened by the death of the old workers 

 that they could not well rear brood, and so 

 just eked out an existence trying to brood 

 but failed. 



Right here is where packing shows its 

 value more than anywhere else. If these 

 weak and dwindling colonies are hid away 

 so deep as to exclude the solar heat, they are 

 almost as surely doomed as if exposed to the 

 extreme of heat and cold. But if the pack- 

 ing is only two or three inches thick, and so 

 arranged as to receive the heat of the sun 

 and be warmed through and through, it not 

 only helps the colony during the day time, 

 but also preserves a more even temperature 

 by night. A little close observation will 

 show that of two colonies of equal strength, 

 the one packed, and one not, the former will 

 cover the most brood, the latter being com- 

 pelled to contract or compactly cluster. 



A large apiary in this county has been 

 packed in chaff now for four or five winters. 

 About three to five inches of chaff are above 

 in a hive body, and the cover left partly 

 open to allow moisture to escape. The past 

 two winters have been colder than usual, and 

 when the covers were left too close, moist- 

 ure accumulated somewhat. However, they 

 have wintered with scarcely any loss. The 

 packing has been too deep all around, but 

 when fairly started in the spring, breeding 

 was rapid. 



LOVELAND, Colo. 



Aug. 8, 1993. 



Bee - Dysentery.— Its Cause and Prevention. 



8. COBNEIL. 



We shall get there by and by, 

 Do it right— and know the why. 



JN his leader on 

 the above topic 

 the editor says : "We 

 do know that, in al- 

 most all cases of bee- 

 dysentery, the ftecal 

 mass is almost al- 

 ways wholly pollen." 

 This is a mistake. 

 Dysenteric dischar- 

 ges are distinguish- 

 ed from faeces voided 

 in health by the ex- 

 cessive quantity of water they contain. It 

 has been observed that, on the occasion of 

 their first flight in spring, healthy bees often 

 void fajces which contain at least twice as 

 much pollen, weight fo"- weight, as is con- 

 tained in the excrement of dysenteric bees. 

 Prof. Cook examined microscopically some 

 specimens of "dryfte3es" which I sent to 

 Dr. Miller. His report is that " as they 

 break up they are found to be composed 

 wholly, or almost#wholly, of pollen grains." 

 See Gleanings, page 391, 1885. Later on Dr. 

 Miller says " I am not mistaken, I think, as 

 to what I saw, for I have often seen the bees 

 in the act of voiding, both in this and other 

 years, and have seen thousands of specimens, 

 such as Mr. Cornell sent, both on the hive 

 and in the vicinity." For a fuller account 

 of Dr. Miller's observations see Gleanings, 

 page 703, 1885. Mr. Heddon has said that 

 fajces of this discription are evidence of dis- 

 ease. If so, I want to have my bees diseased 

 in this way every year. 



The editor also says " I feel certain that 

 bees with only pure cane sugar for stores, 

 placed in a cellar where the temperature is 

 about 45°, will bear a confinement of four 

 or five months, with no trace of disease." 

 The editor is mistaken again. Mr. Doolittle 

 tried to winter bees in just this way, and lost 

 them. His experiments and observations 

 show clearly that sugar syrup in place of 

 honey, and the absence of pollen, do not se- 

 cure immunity from dysentery. See Glean- 

 ings, pages 231 and 342, 1885. 



There is another reason which of itself 

 makes it imperative that pollen must not be 

 excluded from the larder of the bees in win- 

 ter. It is known that carbo-hydrates cannot 



