140 



TBE Bt:t:-KEEPERS REVIE'^o, 



left in the hives in which the colonies had 

 perished were not removed before weighing 

 and the extra amount of bees lost from 

 them outside the hives was considered to 

 compensate for the deficiency in the amount 

 of stores consumed. The following figures 

 show the result of the weighing and the 

 amount of stores consumed. 



Wt Nov 26, Apr 14. Loss in wt. 



63 \1% 15J4 L. fr's, died in Marcli. 

 46 29-M 16)^ L. fr's, died in March. 

 54J4 3614 18 Hed. h'v, died in Ann. 

 67 48?ci 18U Hed. h'v, alive in Apr. 

 74 51M ^2M " 



Total consumption 90J4 

 Average 18 1 20 



(Jf the colonies weighed when they were 

 put into the cellar Nov. 2(!th six were select- 

 ed for this comparison as being fairly equal 

 in strength and prosperity to the five already 

 considered. Their weights and consumption 

 of stores were as follows : 



which show a consumption of less than one 

 half by those wintered in the cellar as com- 

 pared with those wintered outside, effecting 

 a saving of more than nine pounds per col- 

 ony, the exact amouut saved being '.).17;") on 

 each colony. This with the much greater 

 security afforded would seem a sufficiently 

 strong incentive for the housing of bees 

 during winter. 



Six other colonies wintered in the cellar 

 were weighed in like manner but are not 

 used for compairpon because they were be- 

 low the average in strength having been 

 treated for foul brood rather late last season, 

 but as they wintered excellently I give the 

 results here to show how small an amount 

 of honey colonies may require during the 

 winter if well housed. The first two were 

 in two story Heddon hives and the others 

 were each in a single story. 



The bees in my cellar wintered exception- 

 ally well — better I think than they ever did 

 before except when they had sugar stores. 

 Outof about 1201 lost three apparently from 

 dysentery all the rest except one or two are in 

 excellent heart. They were unusually quiet 

 during the winter as well as while they were 

 being carried out. I cannot be certain of 

 the exact cause of this but I surmise that it 

 was the manner in which they were treated. 



Contrary to what had been the case be- 

 fore, during the past winter the cistern in the 

 cellar was allowed to contain no water, but 

 the hydrometer kept in the cellar indicated 

 the same degree of moisture as during the 

 preceeding winter — about !)5 per cent, al- 

 most complete saturation, bat I do not 

 think now any of these conditions had any- 

 thing at all to do with the well being of the 

 bees. This raises the question of the 

 agency of moisture in causing dysentery, 

 but when bees winter almost perfectly in an 

 atmosphere well nigh surcharged with 

 moisture it furnishes very satisfactory evi- 

 dence to me that moisture in itself is not the 

 cause of ill wintering. 



Another point in which the bees received 

 somewhat different treatment was in the 

 amount of disturbance they were subject to 

 from frequent visits with a light. Previous- 

 ly they had been visited freely without any 

 compunctions and disturbed by lifting covers 

 etc. while during the past winter visits were 

 as infrequent and as brief as the require- 

 ments of my experiments permitted I have 

 always been persuaded that such visits and 

 consequent disturbances were not specially 

 harmful and I am not as yet disturbed in 

 that opinion by this last experience. 



Still another point is that in former win- 

 ters I had clung to a habit which took its 

 rise when my cellar was overcharged with 

 bees which had a tendency to cause the tem- 

 perature to rise to a higher point than was 

 to my liking, on account of which I fell into 

 the practise at such times of opening a door 

 or window of a night to let the temperature 

 of the cellar run down, and as this seemed 

 to have a quieting effect I naturally thought 

 it was a good one, but on considering the 

 debilitated state in which many of the 

 weaker colonies came out of winter quarters 

 I began to question it, and during the past 

 winter no outside door or window was open- 

 ed from the time the last of the bees were 

 put into the cellar till the day the first were 

 taken out, and the inner door only when it 



