THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



163 



is letisennl through the abundance of cheap 

 literature. 



We enjoy the social part of a convention 

 and form an opinion of the worth of the 

 wi-itings of those we afterwards hear from 

 on paper. 



I heartily agree with you as to the secreta- 

 ry-ship. It requires more work than anyone 

 can be expected to do free of charge ; and if 

 any association could get money enough 

 ahead, through membership fees, to pay a 

 secretary, it would, I believe, be money in 

 pocket, and such an association would have 

 more successful meetings. I am not in fa- 

 vor of increasing the membership fees ; let 

 the secretary exert himself to increase the 

 membership list. This has generally been a 

 good honey season, a secretary should make 

 a success of a meeting with half the labor 

 required in a poor season. 



There is one more point you have not 

 touched upon and which is important. Let 

 each bee-keeper organize himself into a 

 local secretary and make every effort to in- 

 duce others to become members, and, better 

 still, attend. So often a spirit of contention, 

 party feelings and the like, creep in, to the 

 injury of an association. If from no higher 

 motive, the welfare of the association de- 

 mands that we should do all in our power to 

 prevent this. Anything like wire-pulling 

 ought to be cried down : and I honestly be- 

 lieve tliat canvassing before elections for 

 votes for friends or those we think will best 

 lill the positions, does more harm than good. 

 It genders strife. 



RoMNEY, Canada. Sep. I'O, 188'J. 



Protection of Bees When They Need it, vs. 

 All the Year Bound. 



T. F. BINGHAM. 



§MALL HIVES and the reduction of 

 honey in amount to the absolute re- 

 quirements of winter have rendered 

 necessary some compensating appli- 

 ances, or ditferent management. The greed 

 and avarice of bee-keepers who, copying the 

 instinct of their bees, ruthlessly take all 

 they can get and squeeze their subjects into 

 the narrowest possible domain, prescribing 

 rules and methods of diet and rate of con- 

 sumption, carefully figuring out how long 

 5,0t)0 bees can survive on half rations, lias led 

 to a vast amount of theoretic display and 

 renderd more necessary and constant the 

 care of bees, at tiie same time increasing the 

 risks and multiplying the losses. How, and 

 by what means to compensate for the lack of 

 honey and room in which and on which to 

 winter and spring a, colony of bees, has long 

 occupied the attention of l)ee-keepers, bee- 

 couventions, bee-books and the makers of 

 hives. How best to promote and perfect the 

 time-honored plan of out-door wintering, 

 with our present hives and system, is a diifi- 

 cult question to solve. 



One theory, however, it may be well to 

 combat at the outset : viz., that the air in a 

 bee-hive passes up through burlap and saw- 

 dust laden with excreta and five gallons of 

 water evaporated from the slow con- 



sumption of two and one-half gallons of 

 thick honey. Does anyone suppose that 

 such air under such conditions would do any 

 such thing? He who covers his bees with so 

 much slow-heat-conducting material as to 

 prevent the too rai)id escape of the heat gen- 

 erated by them, accomplishes all that is pos- 

 sible, irrespective of avenues of escape or 

 means of absorption. 



Lucifer matches are made of soft, pine 

 wood, as that has proven easy of ignition 

 without previous or more heat than that fur- 

 nished by the material used by match mak- 

 ers. These pine sticks ignite more readily, 

 however, just in proportion as they are slen- 

 der ; showing that even pine of the softest 

 kind, which means the most porous to a cer- 

 tain extent, conducts from its surface the 

 heat that is applied to it. 



The above illustration explains why pine 

 is superior to other wood as a summer or a 

 winter hive. This principle carried out 

 fully would adapt, so far as material goes, 

 the protection to the exposure. To deter- 

 mine, then, how much of this slow-conduct- 

 ing material should be used, would simply 

 be to ascertain the maximum of exposure. 

 Right here let it be distinctly understood 

 that no substance is a non-conductor, and 

 that the greater the quantity of even the 

 poorest conductor with which the bees are 

 surrounded, the better will be their pro- 

 tection. One foot of sawdust would be of 

 more than twenty times the value of one 

 inch of the same material : while one inch 

 might in some instances make all the differ- 

 ence between death and a narrow escape 

 from it. It might be mentioned in this con- 

 nection, that rotten wood is one of the best 

 non-conductors of heat. When perfectly dry, 

 it is equal if not superior to cork. Cork has 

 one advantage not possessed by rotten wood, 

 it is not easily wet. 



It is well known that an extremely cold 

 night, or a sharp, cold storm may come at 

 almost any time, but such cold is rarely of 

 long duration : and it is the province of this 

 slow-conducting (not »oii-conducting) ma- 

 terial to convey back to the bees the surplus 

 heat that it has absorbed from them, and 

 thus equalize and average the temperature 

 enveloping the colony. No one will fail to 

 notice that, in this way, a uniformity of tem- 

 perature in surroundings is simply one of 

 natural law, and not due to the escape of 

 moisture, or moist air, or bee-breath, or any 

 other escape, but simply to the retention and 

 slow parting and absorption of the nonnal 

 heat generated by the bees. A thorough 

 knowledge of this fact lies at the foundation 

 of success in any system of out-door pro- 

 tection, and renders many of the theories 

 easy of solution. 



Right here I wish to put in a word about 

 the much-talked-of tiieory that bees " warm 

 up and fiy in winter from being in thin 

 hives," while they don't warm ui) and fly from 

 judiciously protected hives. In the lan- 

 guage of the street, ''they don't have to." 

 The same heat that would warm a colony in 

 a thin hive would more thoroughly warm 

 one in a hive having an inch hole for an en- 

 trance, with a foot of fine hay or sawdust 

 .surrounding it. It is not because the bees 



