FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 293 



room to set these eolonies in a cooler place, but they were 

 allowed to stay right where they were to see what the result 

 would be. They wintered beautifully — until they died. They 

 staived to death, and that not so very late in winter, although 

 1 think they were well supplied with stores. No doubt the heat 

 kept them so active that they used up their stores with unusual 

 rapidity. 



BAD WINTERING. 



Inder the circumstances I figured on considerable loss. The 

 loss went beyond my figuring. Not that the deaths all occurred 

 in the cellar. They were largely after the bees were taken out 

 in the spring; none the less, however, thpy were chargeable to 

 bad wintering. By the 12th of May there were left only 124 

 colonies out of 1C9 ]uit in cellar, and many of them were mere 

 nuclei. A loss of 37 per cent was not gratifyii\s ; but, b?ekeep- 

 erlike, I looked forward hopefully to the next winter. 



Alas for my hopes ! Instead of 'M per cent, the loss for the 

 winter of 1903-04 was 47 per cent, leaving l.'SO colonies alive 

 out of 284. And the loss was mainly due to lack of sufficient 

 stores. Some of them had died in the cellar, and more would 

 have died there if they had not been taken out a little earlier 

 than was well, so they could be fed. But feeding very early 

 in spring is not so well as having an abundance of stores in the 

 fall, and the mortality continued well along in spring. The 

 fact that after so many years of experience, and after advising 

 others always to have abundant stores for winter, I should have 

 lost colonies by the score through starvation, was humiliating 

 indeed. 



But conditions were new and I needed to learn that in a 

 cellar with the tliennometer generally ranging from .'iO to 60, 

 and sometimes going higher, bees consume stoies much more 

 rapidly than at a lower temperature, and to the increasing 

 number of those who are putting furnaces in cellars, I would 

 say, " Look out for starvation." 



But along with the disadvantage mentioned, there are not 

 lacking advantages. Perhaps I ought to say advantage rather 

 than advantages, for the one great advantage is that of an 

 abundant supply of pure, fresh air. Except in the very 



