CHAPTER VIII. 



PEOTBCTION AGAINST EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD, 



SUDDEN AND SEVERE CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE, AND 



DAMPNESS IN THE HIVES. 



I Specially invite a careful perusal of this chapter, as 

 the subject, though of the very first importance in the man- 

 agement of bees, is one to which but little attention has 

 been given by the majority of cultivators. ' 



In our climate of great and sudden extremes, many col- 

 onies are annually injured or destroyed by undue exposure 

 to heat or cold. In Summer, thin hives are often exposed to 

 the direct heat of the sun, so that the combs melt, and the 

 bees are drowned in their own sweets. Even if they es- 

 cape utter ruin, they cannot work to advantage in the almost 

 suffocating heat of their hives. 



But in those places where the Winters are both long and 

 severe, it is much more difficult to protect the bees from the 

 cold than from the heat. Bees are not, as some suppose, 

 in a dormant, or torpid condition in Winter. It must be 

 remembered that they were intended to live in colonies, in 

 Winter, as well as Summer. The wasp, hornet, and oth- 

 er insects which do not live in families in the Winter, lay up 

 no stores for cold weather, and are so organized as to be 

 able to endure in a torpid state, a very low temperature ; so 

 low that it would be certain death to a honey-bee, which 

 when frozen, is as surely killed as a frozen man. 



