THE BEE-KEEPER IN WINTER. 101 



During winter there will be little for the bee- 

 keeper to do, and he may ' leave well alone.' But 

 then he must have made due preparation for winter, 

 and, if he has done this, he has taken care to put extra 

 coverings of flannel, with, perhaps, cushions of chaff, 

 on the top of the frames. He has also well packed 

 with chaff or cork-dust the spaces between the two 

 walls of his hives. He will also have taken away 

 some of the frames, and contracted the space in each 

 hive according to the strength of the colony and the 

 number of bees, taking care that the bees fill all the 

 space left them. By all these and such-like means he 

 makes the most of that heat which is necessary to the 

 well-being of the hive. 



' Thy bee-hives, whether hollowing out of cork 

 Thou join'st them, or with rods of osier weavest, 

 Construct with narrow orifice ; for cold 

 Contracts the honey.' 



Virgil (by Kennedy). 



The bees have wonderful power to produce and 

 sustain warmth, and to keep the temperature of the 

 hive uniform, but, of course, if there are large vacant 

 spaces containing cold air, and these have to be 

 warmed, as well as the other portions of the interior, 

 there must be great and unnecessary expenditure of 

 heat-producing power, and this means, in other words, 

 a great and unnecessary consumption of food, for with 

 bees, as with ourselves, food is the great means by 

 which the heat of the body is sustained. But as this 

 is a very important subject it will be well to devote a 

 separate chapter to its consideration. 



M 



