102 DADANT SYSTEM OF BEEKEEPING 



tests and extensive experiments made by them. The tempera- 

 ture, as recorded by us in the cellar, might admit of 50 at the 

 top of the hives. But there is a very safe way to adjust the 

 advice to give the novice. Have a thermometer, try to find the 

 degree at which your bees are quietest, and hold it at that. 

 Everybody agrees that this is sound advice. When the bees 

 are happy, we can just hear a slight rumble, a "bruissement" 

 as the French call it, much resembling the quiet rustle of the 

 leaves among the trees or the whisper of the waves on a distant 

 shore. 



Wintering in Clamps 



We also tried wintering in clamps, long ago. For two win- 

 ters, we put our bees in a clamp, just as we would potatoes or 

 cabbage, with the only difference that we had draft holes, for 

 the ingress and egress of ventilation. This method would cer- 

 tainly be successful in cold climates. It failed with us when 

 we had a wet winter, the ground of the silo being soaking wet 

 during the greater part of the winter. The bees suffered from 

 mould and came out in bad shape. 



Wintering Out-of-Doors 



This was the final method adopted by us. We tried colonies 

 in sheds, sheltered by closing the shed in stormy weather and 

 opening it on warm days. This method was very satisfactory. 

 But sheds for hundreds of colonies are not practical. We tried 

 putting large dry goods boxes over some hives, during the cold. 

 This was also good, provided we uncovered our colonies in warm 

 days. 



We tried what has been called "chaff-hives," with 2 inches 

 of chaff or sawdust all around, above and below the hive body. 

 This was good but entailed the making of very expensive and 

 cumbrous outer-cases, which made the hives difficult to trans- 

 port, especially as our hives are already very large. A chaff- 

 hive of the Dadant pattern weighed 80 pounds, empty. In addi- 

 tion, during one winter we found that the bees which were con- 



