WINTERING. 249 



BEST AKKA.NGEMENT OF A CELLAE. 



The part to be used for the storage of the bees should 

 be directly beneath a room where a fire is regularly kept. 

 The cellar bottom should be well laid with hydraulic ce- 

 ment, and the walls plastered and pointed with the same. 

 This cement prevents moisture from passing into the 

 cellar. A cellar should be most thoroughly dried when 

 thus prepared with cement, before bees are placed in it. 

 I have known very serious results ensue where this pre- 

 caution was not observed. It is sometimes needful to 

 place a stove in the wintering apartment, connecting it 

 with the stove-pipe above by means of the ventilating 

 pipe, and keep a constant fire for a month, in order to 

 bring it to a fit condition for use. 



The room should be closely partitioned off with 

 matched lumber, so that it will not admit the least ray 

 of light. On the sides next to the wall it should be 

 ceiled about one foot from it. If this is not done, 

 that space, at least, should be left unoccupied. The bees 

 would do better in a solid body in the center of the room 

 than close to the walls. Fresh air should be brought 

 into the room through a window or similar opening by 

 means of a tube, or air conductor, made of boards, six or 

 eight inches square. Let it extend to the bottom and 

 across the room, with holes bored at frequent intervals, 

 the entire length, to distribute the air more evenly to all 

 parts of the room, and avoid a current to any one point, 

 as even a sudden rush of air is objectionable. A five-inch 

 pipe should start near the bottom of the cellar, pass up 

 through the floor, and enter the stove pipe above, as near 

 the stove as possible, to afford an escape for cold and im- 

 pure air. This may be arranged with a T near the floor 

 above, with an aperture to be opened or closed at pleasure 

 for the purpose of drawing off the warm air when desired 

 from the upper part of the cellar. This ventilating pipe 



