284 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



ones have perhaps the advantage by being higher up, where it 

 is a little warmer. 



CARRYING IX BEES WHEX HOUSED UP. 



Often the beees get so warmed up by the middle of the fore- 

 noon, that they fly out when their hive is lifted to be carried 

 into the cellar. In this case the hive is put back on its summer 

 stand, and another colony, le>s wide-awake, is taken. But if the 

 rousing up becomes general, operations must cease until the 

 after-part of the day or the next morning. If for any reason, 

 as the lateness of the season, or the fear of an approaching 

 storm, it is thought best to carry in a hive whether the bees are 

 willing or not, the entrance must be stopped. For this purpose 

 — as there is no danger of suffocation from stopping for a short 

 time — I know of nothing better than a large rag or cloth which 

 will easily cover the entire entrance. The rag must be dripping 

 wet. In this condition it can be very quickly laid at the en- 

 trance, and being cold and wel the bees seem to be dri\en back 

 by it, and when the rag is removed in the cellar, few if any bees 

 come out. If dry, the bees would sting the rag, and upon its 

 removal in the cellar a crowd of angry bees would follow it. 



WAR3IING THE CELLAK. 



There is a furnace in the cellar where my bees are kept, 

 which has been there since the winter of 1902-3. But let us go 

 back to the time before that, when the chief difficulty was to 

 keep the cellar warm enough. Some think it a bad thing to 

 have fire in cellar. I would rather have the right temperature 

 without the fire. So I would in my sitting-room. But when 

 the temperature in the sitting-room without a fire gets down in 

 the neighborhood of zero, I would rather have the fire. Same 

 way in the cellar. In this latitude, 42 degrees north, I have 

 known the mercury to reach 37 degrees below zero, and some 

 winters there is very little of the time when my cellar is warm 

 enough for the bees. A thermometer hangs centrally in the 

 cellar, and I liy to keep it at about 45 degrees. Sometimes it 

 goes to 36 degrees, but not often, and not for long. Oftener it 

 reaches 50 degrees, but that is neither often nor long. 



