60 WINTERING BEES 



temperature. We went out and got a cage of bees about 

 every two or three hours, and we found that we could revive 

 them without difficulty ; but at the end of 24 hours the bees, 

 when they " came to," seemed somewhat the worse for the 

 experience. The temperature in 'the snow played around 

 the 32 mark. But the experiments conducted during the 

 summer would seem to show that bees niight stand a temper- 

 ature of 38 for a number of days. 



We know it to be a fact that the bees on the outside of the 

 ball or cluster, in an out-door-wintered colony, will often be 

 chilled stiff while those inside have almost a blood tempera- 

 ture. It has occurred to us that, during very severe weather, 

 the outside bees may be gradually replaced by those within 

 the cluster ; for we know the bees are in constant movement. 

 Experiments show that a starved bee will not stand as much 

 cold as one that is well filled. Beekeepers who have had any 

 experience in wintering outdoors know how repeatedly they 

 have taken clusters of bees that seemed to be frozen stiff, yet 

 when warmed up before a good fire would revive and appear 

 as lively as ever. 



In view of the experiments Ave have thus far conducted, 

 it would appear that bees might be able to stand a tempera-' 

 ture of 40, or slightly below that, for a number of days; 

 but if a warm spell does not oome within a week, or less, 

 those bees in their chilled condition may starve to death. 

 But if it warms up, the cluster will unfold and the bees take 

 food, and so be ready for another " freeze." The authors 

 have repeatedly seen clusters of bees, after a zero spell, last- 

 ing a couple of weeks, that were stone dead ; but the honey 

 had. been eaten from all around them within a radius of an 

 inch or more. If a zero spell of weather continues more 

 than a week or ten days, we always find some of the weaker 

 colonies frozen to death in the spring. 



There are some interesting phenomena in connection with 

 chilled bees — ^their quiescent sleep, their low respiration, 

 their light consumption of stores — that simulate a condition 

 of semi-hibernation. The bees when in a chilled condition 

 can go only a few days without food, while a bear, a true 



