604 Scientific Proceedings, Royal Dublin Society. 
Lastly, I brought all the others (eight) into the dwelling-houre, 
previously placing each on one of the prepared “boxes.” 
These I arranged in a spare room. There was no fire-place 
but the temperature varied extremely little, as the window faced 
N.W., and was well-sheltered, while there were inhabited rooms 
at either side. 
A. Four of the number I placed on the floor in a corner, 
and kept them the entire winter undisturbed, and in utter 
darkness—that is, from the middle of November to the middle of 
February. (Ofcourse I did not touch any hives to do all this 
until the bees had “ settled down” for tne winter.) 
B. Two more of the number I placed where, on removal of the 
shutters, the light could penetrate from the window of the room, 
thus giving a view on looking in at the opposite aperture in the 
box. The last two I placed similarly, but le*t the shutters 
always off. 
(I took all this trouble because I saw every one’s bees, wintered 
in the old way, dying off in every direction. Mine, indeed, are 
now nearly the only—if not the on/y—bees within ten miles at 
least.) 
Now to begin—thirteen hives. 
A. I will first dispose of the four placed in a dark corner of the 
room, and not looked at for three months. Not a sound was 
emitted in the way of a stir or buzz during the entire time. All 
that was heard was an occasional “hollow tap” on the floor of the 
box, caused by the tall of a dead bee from the combs. When 
these hives and boxes were examined in February a good “double 
handful” of dead bees jay under the brood combs of the hive 
(where bees were clustered), just as they fell, and hives were 
strong in bees and honey. Here, at all events, I had the 
number of bees that died within a certain period, unless there 
were other dead ones up amongst the combs, which would be 
contrary to my experience at that time of the year at all events, 
when bees are all clustered together, and hustle out any dead ones. 
After examination each was taken out of doors and placed on 
its particular stand. 
B. Now I will take the hives placed opposite the window of 
the room. 
Two of these, as I stated, I kept in darkness, while the other 
