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Established in ISSS by the late 

 W. Z. Hutchinson 



OFFICIAL ORGANOF THE 



NATIONAL BEEKEEPERS' ASSOCIATION 



AND ITS AFFILIATED ASSOCIATIONS 



E. D. TOWNSEND, Managing Editor, Northstar, Michigan 



ASSOCIATE EDITORS 



WESLEY FOSTER, Boulder. Colo. PROF. EDWIN G. BALDWIN, Deland. Fla. 



Entered as second-class matter December 9 1913, at the postoffice at 

 Northstar, Michigan, under the Act of March 3, 1879. 



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VOL. XXVII NORTHSTAR, MICHIGAN, AUGUST 1, 1914 No. 8 



The Temperature of the Honey-Bee Cluster in Winter 



By E. F. PHILLIPS, Ph. D., 



In Charge of Bee Culture Investiga- 

 tions, and George S. Demuth 

 Apicultural Assistant. 



The effect of confinement and 

 the accumulation of Feces. 



Before beginning a discussion of 

 the effect of confinement and the 

 accumulation of feces, it may be 

 recalled that during the active 

 summer season the length of life of 

 worker bees is in a sense deter- 

 mined by the work done by them, 

 rather than by days or weeks. 

 The greater the necessity for ex- 

 cess^ive activity the shorter the 

 term of life. The authors believe 

 that they have evidence to prove 

 that this applies to the winter also, 

 and this belief is entirely supported 

 by the experience of beekeepers 



everywhere. That bees may come 

 out of winter quarters strong in 

 numbers and vitality it follows that 

 the work to be done by the bees 

 in the winter should be reduced 

 to a minimum; and the winter 

 problem, as thus interpreted, is 

 therefore to find the conditions 

 under which broodless bees do the 

 least work. The work which brood- 

 less bees do in winter consists, so 

 far as has been determined, solely 

 in the production of heat or in ac- 

 Tivity incident to flying on warm 

 days (if free to fly), and therefore 

 the problem, so far as it is under 

 the control of the beekeeper, is 

 primarily to obviate the necessity 

 for the production of heat. If brood 

 is reared the work of the bees is 

 necessarily enormously increased, 

 and their vitality is corresponding- 

 ly decreased. So far as evidence is 



