ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 91 
VENTILATING OUR BEB-CELLARS. 
There are but few things connected with the wintering of our bees 
that elicit such a difference of opinion as the ventilating of our bee 
cellars. While it is true that bees have been and are frequently win- 
tered in cellars that have little or no ventilation, it is also true that, 
in these, we usually find the combs badly molded, honey thin and watery, 
and the bees somewhat affected with dysentery, and far from a healthy 
condition when taken out. Certainly it is contrary to natural law to 
confine our bees under ground five months or more, compelling them to 
breathe the same air over and over thousands of times, and then expect 
them to remain in a healthy condition so as to stand the ever change- 
able weather of our spring season. 
In constructing our building we had several objects in view. First, 
and one of the most important, was to give the cellar proper ventilation; 
next, to give us a large room above to do our extracting in, and store 
our surplus hives of extracting-combs and many other things connected 
with the business. Then we wanted a tank-room where we could have 
our honey-tanks so arranged that, in a moment, we could turn the honey 
directly from the extractor into either tank; then we wanted a shop 
where we could make hives and do all kinds of odd jobs, such as mak- 
ing beeswax into comb foundation, grafting larve for queen-cells, which 
should always be done in a warm room, and, lastly, plenty of room to 
store a large crop of honey in until sold. 
First, I will describe the building, which is 24 feet wide and 56 
feet long. The longest way is north and south. The cellar occupies 
24x40 feet of the ground floor at the north end; then the tank-room 
occupies 16x24 feet of the south end, and its floor is on the same level 
with the cellar floor. This room has four doors in it—one wide door 
opening into the south end of the cellar; also one wide outside door in 
the south end of the building where we roll out the barrels of honey 
into the wagon when we ship. Then we have a door on each side of 
this room, which comes very handy to carry bees in and out of the 
cellar from the lower part of the bee-yard by putting screens on these 
two doors; and by leaving them open we get a fine current of air through 
the tank-room, which has much to do with ripening and thickening the 
honey. The cellar also has an outside door at the northeast corner, 
where the greater number of colonies are carried in and out. The shop 
part is on the upper floor, which is level with the floor of the extracting- 
room, and is 16x24 feet. 
This extracting-room or store-room is 24x40 feet; and directly over 
the cellar in the floor of it we have four trap-doors about 10 feet apart, 
in size 2x2% feet, directly over the bees. These we can easily open 
to any size of hole from a little crack to the whole space, 2x2% feet, 
which allows all impure air to pass off into the large room above. We 
can also put a quilt in the place of the large door at the south end of 
the cellar, which gives fine ventilation into the tank-room and up the 
stairway into the shop, and up a garret. We have two pipe-holes in 
the chimney, one of which is always open, and makes a strong current 
of all foul air out of the building. This steady and gradual ventilation 
of the cellar into these two large rooms, one at the end and the other 
directly over the cellar, keeps the air as fresh and healthy where the 
bees are as it is outdoors. 
With this way of ventilating the cellar it is never necessary to 
open any outside doors, letting in cool fresh air, which will arouse a 
whole cellar of bees to the extent that they never again become quiet, 
and form themselves into a nice compact cluster, as they should to go 
through the latter part of the winter without loss. 
