24 WINTERING BEES 



body heat because the cold surfaces carry away (that is, 

 dissipate) the warmth. 



We have exactly that condition when we insert combs of 

 sealed honey into a bunch of bees. We compel them to 

 divide up into four or five clusters. The result is, that 

 colonies tampered with in this manner perish or come out 

 in the spring very weak because of their inability to main- 

 tain the requisite temperature. Where outside bees become 

 stiff with cold they can not long endure that condition. 



If a colony is fed gradually during October and Novem- 

 ber they will form this winter nest. If, however, they are 

 on the verge of starvation and they are fed 30 lbs. in a single 

 night toward the last end of the fall, or when it is quite cold, 

 they do not have the opportunity of forming this nest. 

 They will carry the syrup down while it is hot; then for a 

 few days after that, if it is so they can fly, or, rather, so 

 the cluster can move freely about the brood-nest, they may 

 or may not rearrange the stores. The cluster, when it actu- 

 ally forms up for winter, will be practically one homogene- 

 ous mass of bees separated by only thin cell walls and the 

 midribs of the combs. 



If anybody doubts that bees try to have a winter nest, let 

 him break into several clusters of bees when the temperature 

 is down to about 5 above zero, in an outdoor colony. We 

 have done this repeatedly. If the arrangement of combs has 

 not been disturbed in the fall, we will probably find the bees 

 tightly jammed into the cells. And, again, we will often 

 discover, as we go over our colonies in the late winter or 

 early spring, that some of them have actually starved to 

 death. In all such cases we will see dead bees tightly pack- 

 ed in the cells of the winter nest, and a solid mass of bees 

 between the several spaces between the combs. Starvation 

 is often due to the fact that cold weather has continued so 

 long without a let-up that the bees are left high and dry, so 

 to speak, in the center of the winter nest. They actually 

 starve, notwithstanding that sealed honey is within two 

 inches of the cluster. The long-continued cold has given 

 them no opportunity to warm up and shift the cluster over 



