86 FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT 



to lay, and lay normally, and not one of them laid drone-layer 

 eggs. The question was, if bees can be put in a position 

 where they are perfectly stiff with cold for 48 hours, can they 

 be kept in that condition longer, and, if so, how long? I 

 omitted to carry on that experiment. It has been said bees do 

 not die of cold. What kills them we do not know. 



Another question, I should say the question of the temper- 

 ature of the cellar and the buzzing and noise depends some- 

 what on the time of year. When the bees are first put in they 

 are apt to be quiet in our cellar, with a high or low tempera- 

 ture, but after they have been there for three or four months 

 they begin to get uneasy. Then the latter must be accounted 

 for. If the temperature is too high or too low it must be 

 brought to the proper degree. Giving bees a midwinter flight 

 stops the buzzing and roaring in our case. I would describe 

 this noise, when it is normal, as like a harp. Once in a while 

 you will get a noise something like the sound of telephone 

 wires, not that high note, but a sort of low, distant hum. 

 When you get something of the effect of that contented, quiet 

 noise amongst the bees that seems to indicate everything is 

 normal and right, that is the condition we call perfect; and 

 yet there is a little noise there, and that noise might, to the 

 beginner, seem to be the wrong thing. 



Mr. Abbott — We don't get the point exactly yet. I think 

 this is a vital point, and I have been trying to get the bee- 

 books and bee-papers, to say something about it for a long 

 time and they have persisted in not doing it, and that is the 

 reason I am calling it out. I hold that bees are wintered suc- 

 cessfully where the mercury runs down to 40 degrees below 

 zero, out-of-doors, on the summer stands ; and that that can be 

 done in any place in the United States, provided there is food 

 accessible ; and that no normal cluster of bees ever dies from 

 cold when there is food accessible ; and to be accessible it 

 must be directly above the cluster; and that the bees in that 

 condition will winter safely any place in any temperature that 

 ever existed in the United States or ever may exist — if the 

 food is accessible — if the "stove" is there, as Dr. Miller says. 

 He brings the point out clearly. If the food is on another 

 frame or where they can't get at it without breaking cluster 

 or following up the line of heat they will die from starvation, 

 but if they can get at the "stove" they will not die. Now if 

 anybody has any evidence to prove to the contrary I should 

 like to know it, for I have been talking this thing for 15 or 20 

 years, and I don't want to talk it any longer if it is not right. 

 But I do, if it is right, longer and louder. 



Mr. Wilcox — What I was going to say was bearing rather 

 upon the discussion between Dr. Miller and Mr. Root, but 

 since Mr. Abbott has spoken I want to say I have conducted 

 one experiment that substantiates his claim very much. I 

 once took a bee-tree about four feet long and set it 

 up in the front yard, full of honey and bees, and 

 with a temperature of 40 degrees below zero. It froze 

 and burst open the whole length; and those bees win- 

 tered well and came out right in the spring. I could put 



