WINTERING. 99 



impure air and the inevitably falling temperature — toi the folly of 

 stopping ventilation to keep bees warm really makes thfm the victims 

 of cold — drop from their cluster to die, and subsequently to introduce 

 disease by their decomposition. 



We have now to consider the secorid of the two propositions with 

 wtich we started, viz., that ventilation is the oilly natural means of 

 keeping the hive in a dry condition. We have already seen that the 

 consumption of 24oz. honey produced no less than 18oz. water, which 

 is given out by the bees in the form of vapour in the air, escaping 

 from the breathing tubes. We, like bees, are continually throwing 

 off by the respiratory process a large amount of watery vapour. In 

 the summer this is held in solution, and is therefore invisible, but on a 

 frosty morning we are reminded of the presence of water by the steamy 

 cloud escaping from our mouths. AH this is due to the fact that air is 

 capable of holding more and more water in solution as its temperature 

 rises ; and, conversely, warm air, upon being cooled, deposits in the form 

 of dew the water it cannot longer retain. The air leaving the bee 

 cluster, although, as we have just stated, carrying with it a large amount 

 of moisture, is still dry, because its comparatively high temperature would 

 enable it to dissolve still more humidity than that with which it is charged . 

 The whole of this it would carry away in an imperceptible form, and no 

 deposit of moisture would take place if it were allowed properly to 

 escape ; but if retained, the hive sides, cooled down by the external air 

 quickly lowers its temperature, and dew, which not unfrequently accumu- 

 lates into little pools, is formed, and for the same reason that the windows 

 of a warm room on a cold day are often perfectly wet within, because the 

 warm air touching the glass has its temperature reduced, and the water it 

 carries is deposited from it. If no ventilation be allowed, the whole of the 

 air in the hive, except that on the cluster, being in a state of super-satura- 

 tion, the combs free of bees quickly become coated with mildew. The hive 

 walls, being constantly damp, not only conduct heat with more facility 

 than if dry, but the water upon them acts as a sort of middleman in the 

 transfer of heat to the exterior. Although air when dry is a very bad 

 conductor, when moist it is very freely cooled by a wet surface, so that 

 bedewing the hive increases immensely the difficulty of maintaining the 

 required heat. 



This ample explanation of the reasons rendering ventilation necessary 

 has been given in order that the reader may so thoroughly see the utility 

 of the plans now suggested as to adopt them. As a ventilating top 

 cover we still find the substance we were the first to recommend the best 

 of any we have yet tried. Matting, the kind known in the trade as 

 Ghina-matting jackets, i.e., the cases in which China matting is protected 

 during transit — or should the jackets not be procurable, the hast (more 

 correctly frail) fish baskets made from these, if unsewn and well ironed. 



