116 THE BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



ly of food which they will consume ?" Enough, I would 

 reply, in some single winters, to pay the difference between 

 a good hive and a bad one I 



I cannot move my finger, or wink my eye-lids without 

 some waste of muscle, however small ; for it is a well-ascer- 

 tained law in our animal economy, that all muscular exertion 

 is attended with a corresponding waste of muscular fibre. 

 Now this waste must be supplied by the consumption of 

 food, and it would be as unreasonable to expect constant 

 heat from a stove without fresh suppliesof fuel, as incessant 

 muscular activity from an insect, without a supply of food 

 proportioned to that activity. If then we can contrive 

 any way to keep our bees in almost perfect quiet during 

 the Winter, we may be certain that they will need much 

 less food than when they are constantly ,excited. 



In the cold Winter of 1851 — 2, 1 kept two swarms in a 

 perfectly dry and dark cellar, where the temperature was 

 remarkably uniform, seldom varying two degrees from 

 50° of Fahrenheit ; and I found that the bees ate very little 

 honey. The hives were of glass, and the bees, when exam- 

 ined from time to time, were found clustered in almost 

 death-like repose. If these- bees had been exposed in thin 

 hives in the open air, they would, in all probability, have 

 eaten four times as much ; for whenever the sun shone upon 

 them, or the atmosphere was unusually warm, they would 

 have been roused to injurious activity, and the same would 

 have been the case, when the cold was severe. Exposed to 

 sudden changes and severe cold, they would have been in 

 almost perpetual motion, and must have been compelled to 

 consume a largely increased quantity of food. In this 

 way, many colonies are annually starved to death, which if 

 they had been better protected, would have survived to glad- 

 den their owner with an abundant harvest. This protec- 



