92 ALEXANDER’S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 
We were surprised last spring to see how few bees wasted away 
while they were confined in the cellar. The average loss was less than 
% pint to the colony, and that with a confinement of over five months. 
Every additional year’s experience in wintering a large number of col- 
onies convinces me more and more of the vital importance of giving 
them a pure healthy atmosphere during these long northern winters. 
I often think that, if those who have gone to much expense 
building bee-cellars, and putting in ventilating-pipes conveying the air 
directly from outdoors in among their bees had only realized how much 
better it would have been to have had this air first tempered, as it 
were, by being a short time in an adjoining room, they would soon have 
changed their ideas in regard to ventilation. But here is the rock that 
shattered their faith in ventilation. When they saw this current of 
ever changing temperature from outside kept their bees restless and 
uneasy they went to the other extreme and closed up all ventilators in 
disgust, and have ever since been prejudiced against ventilating their 
bee-cellars. 
This is one of the questions we bee-keepers have studied on for 
many years; and it does seem strange that it took us so long to see 
the great difference in results when our bees were ventilated by giving 
them fresh air directly from the outside or from adjoining rooms. The 
first has almost invariably done far more harm than good, while the 
second has given us the very best results we could possibly ask for, 
keeping our bees quiet and contented clear into the spring, so that it 
is not necessary to disturb them until the flowers are again ready for 
them to work on. I sometimes think how much easier it would be i: 
we could look ahead and shun these hard problems of life; but then it 
is much better as it is, for it is through their study that our perse- 
verance is developed, and in this way we are ever passing to a higher 
and a more intellectual plane. 
With the continually changing weather of last winter it would have 
been almost impossible for us to prevent a very heavy loss of bees had 
we depended on opening outside doors to ventilate or cool off our cellar; 
for every time this is done it excites and disturbs every colony. 
There are many things to take into consideration in order to winter 
our bees successfully. Many neglect putting their bees in proper con- 
dition as they should, early in the fall. I think this should be done 
before Oct. 1. Every colony should have a good queen not over fifteen 
months old; also a good sized colony of bees with at least 20 pounds 
of honey. This amount is sufficient if they are wintered in a good cellar. 
and you expect to do some feeding in the spring to stimulate early 
breeding, which is very essential in order to secure a surplus of early 
honey. But if you don’t expect to feed any in the spring, then 30 pounds 
or more is better to carry them through to another season. 
In the above I forgot to say that, during the winter, we close the 
inside blinds of all the windows in the room above the cellar, and the 
tank-room at the end. This makes these two rooms as dark as mid- 
night, and with the trap-doors partially open, and the doorway into the 
tank-room covered with a light quilt, there is an even temperature of 
pure air at all times in the cellar, which keeps the bees as quiet as 
death, and with them it is like one long unchanging night from the 
day they are put away until they are carried out in the spring. 
In conclusion, let me advise you by all means, when you build your 
bee-cellar, not to stop until you have a good substantial building over 
it—one that will extend either past the end or side of the cellar suffi- 
cient to hold a few thousand cubic feet of fresh air; then ventilate the 
cellar into these rooms, and you will have the whole wintering problem 
solved. January, 1907. 
