106 WINTERING BEES. 
By all the old methods, the cluster of bees is divided 
by the sheets of comb, which is a great hindrance to 
successful wintering. In such cases the bees cannot 
cluster compactly together, but are spread out between 
the different sheets of comb. In the Controllable Hive, 
and on the plan of wintering here recommended, the bees 
in very cold weather cluster in the space between the 
wire cloth cf the ventilator and the top of the frames of 
the brood section. They are here able to keep up the 
required amount of animal heat, as they can cluster com- 
pactly, without anything to separate them. 
By the ordinary plan, in sudden turns or very cold 
weather, the bees between the outer combs are often 
frozen to death. “Oh!” says some one, “that’s all hum- 
bug; you can’t freeze a bee.” Certainly you can. To 
satisfy yourself of this, after a very cold turn of weather 
look under your box hives, if you have them, or any 
patent hive having a loose bottum board to admit of an 
examination, and see if you do not find hundreds of bees 
which have fallen dead from the outside combs. I have 
examined hundreds of stocks and found them as here 
described. If you don’t believe a bee will freeze, take 
out a dozen from a hive in a severely cold spell of 
weather in mid-winter, confine them in a box, and set 
them out doors, lettiag them remain only one night. See 
if they are not dead beyond resuscitation the next morn- 
ing. This notion that bees will not freeze, is a great mis- 
take, and has led to some very foolish experiments in 
wintering them. 
