STATE bee-keepers' ASSOCIATION. 87 



my hands right through a crack anywhere in that tree. That 

 goes to confirm somewhat Mr. Abbott's theory. The other 

 matter about which I wish to speak is not very important or 

 profitable, but may perhaps be interesting as an experiment. 

 Before I commenced keeping bees in movable-comb hives I 

 inverted a half sugar barrel filled with bees and honey ; 

 poured cold water clear to the brim to drown the bees ; left 

 it 24 hours with a temperature of 25 or 30 degrees bdow zero ; 

 then went to carry my bees in and get my honey. I was sur- 

 prised on moving it into the house to find that the water was 

 not entirely frozen over at that very cold temperature and 24 

 hours out-doors, but I rolled it up under the stove just the 

 same and melted the ice out and went away from home. In a 

 few hours more the bees drove my wife out. They were all 

 alive and happy as ever. The query is. Why didn't they 

 drown? Every bee was under water; they were completely 

 covered. Then, again, why didn't that water cool off and 

 freeze over? I suppose perhaps the warmth of the bees pre- 

 vented that, but I would have expected them to drown if they 

 breathed. Can they live" that long without breathing? 



Mr. Becker — As to the question, do bees freeze out- 

 doors, I want to say this, that I have had bees that were out- 

 doors all winter with broken hives that you could almost run 

 your fist into, and they appeared to have wintered all right. 

 Last winter when the thermometer went down to 25 degrees 

 below zero in our latitude, I had 10 colonies in new hives, 

 with plenty of honey, and every one of them died, with the 

 exception of one, before spring came. It lived until spring 

 and then dwindled away and finally died, and in the hive there 

 was as much as 50 pounds of honey. The other hives, many 

 of them full of holes, stood on the summer stands. I couldn't 

 take care of them in the fall because I was too busy. I put 

 in a piece of gunnysack to fill up the opening and they win- 

 tered through in good shape, and produced virtually the honey 

 I got this year. I believe it is not so much the cold as it is 

 the condition that the bees go to winter quarters in. I don't 

 believe in outdoor wintering. I don't want to risk it if I can 

 possibly help it. I believe what will do one year won't do 

 another year. The conditions as to bees are different one 

 year from another in one locality; and they may be all right 

 in one locality and not in another. I also believe that if we 

 can keeo our bees dry, or from getting too much moisture 

 around the cluster,, that the cold will not affect them so much 

 as the dampness does. The honey will freeze around when 

 there is much honey in the comb, and there will be great 

 chunks of ice hanging around the bees all over the comb, 

 and that is one effect of out-door wintering. When it is not 

 warm enough so that they can come out and clean them- 

 selves they will begin to get damp, and the dampness will get 

 through all the hives, and then the next little cold spell will 

 catch every one of them and they die. Where we winter bees 

 in the cellar, we aim to keep them dry and avoid the extreme 

 cold. I believe that dampness has more to do with it than 

 cold weather. •» 



