128 THB BEE keeper's MANUAL. 



manner described, will not know that any change has taken 

 place, but will remain quiet in their winter quarters, unless 

 the weather is so warm that their owner judges it safe to 

 open the entrances, so that the warmth may penetrate their 

 hives, and tempt them to fly, and discharge their faeces. 

 Let it be remembered that the object of this arrangement is 

 not to warm up the hires by artificial heal ; but merely to 

 enable the bees to retain to the utmost their own animal 

 heat, to secure the advantages set forth in this Chapter on 

 Protection. Once or twice during the Winter, the blocks 

 which regulate the entrances to my hives should be re- 

 moved, and as the frames are kept -about half an inch from 

 the bottom-board, by means of a stick or wire, all the dead 

 bees and filih may, in a few moments, be removed : or as 

 the entrance of the hives by removing the blocks, may be so 

 enlarged as to offer no obstruction to its introduction or re- 

 moval, an old newspaper can be kept on the bottom-board, 

 and drawn out from time to time, with all its contents. 



A movable board of the same thickness and length with 

 the bottom-boards of the hive and about six inches wide, 

 separates the hives from each other, as they stand upon the 

 Protector. 



I have made numerous observations upon the temperature 

 of a Protector made substantially on the plan described, and 

 find that it is wonderfully uniform. The lowest range of 

 the thermometer during the months of January and Februa- 

 ry, 1853, in the Protector, was 28°; in the open air, 14° below 

 zero ; the highest in the Protector 32° ; in the open air 56°. 

 It will thus be seen that while the thermometer out of doors 

 had a range of 70°, in the Protector it had a range of only 

 4°. While bees in common hives during some warm days 

 flew out and perished in large numbers on the snow ; the 

 bees over the Protector were perfectly quiet. To this ar- 



