90 ALEXANDER'S WRITINGS ON PRACTICAL BEE CULTURE 



the honey. But if you remove some of the center combs, and pour 

 the honey Into them, returning these wet combs to their hive, causing 

 all the bees to fill themselves with honey, and to scatter through the 

 hive, then again there would be cause for future restlessness and loss. 



The injurious effects of disturbing bees in winter depends to a great 

 extent upon how often and to what an extent it is practiced. When 

 we wintered our bees in the cellar of our dwelling-house, with four 

 rollicking children playing over them, it was no uncommon thing for 

 many colonies to be badly affected with dysentery in February and 

 March. Then it was "Hobson's choice" to leave them in the cellar and 

 see them waste away and die, or set them out for a fly and have the 

 most of them die after they were put back, for the bees never again 

 quieted down into a compact cluster, but continued restless and uneasy 

 until they were set out to stay. 



In regard to the effect of a continued jarring noise over a cellar 

 of bees, as in the the case of The A. I. Root Co.'s bee-cellar under the 

 machine-shop, I would say that I have always believed this disturbance 

 was very closely related to the necessity of so many mid-winter flights. 



As to giving bees a slelghride of fifty or sixty miles in mid-winter, 

 I am quite sure that there are not many that would care to have their 

 bees handled in that way for much less than their actual value. I have 

 brought home on a sleigh bees that I bought in the winter, and then 

 put them into a cellar; but without a single exception I had to set 

 them out early in the spring in order to save them. Bees handled in 

 that way never will stand five months or more of confinement. I have 

 never thought that it did any particular harm to enter a bee-cellar 

 occasionally for a few minutes, if as little noise is made as possible. 



But when from any cause a disturbance is made in winter to the 

 extent that the cluster is broken up and the bees get frightened, filling 

 themselves with honey, then because of the unnatural condition, they 

 are injured very much and only a chance to fly will restore them to a 

 normal state. 



We have to-day, March 23, 750 colonies in our cellar, and the bees 

 are so still with the thermometer at 45° that, when I entered this morn- 

 ing with a lamp, it was almost impossible to hear the least noise, and 

 there seems to be less than 4 quarts of dead bees in the cellar, and 

 not a spot of dysentery on any hive. 



I have given many years of study to learn how to keep bees through 

 a five-months' winter in that way, and I must say that, if there is any 

 one thing connected with cellar wintering that has more to do with 

 success than any other, aside from good food, it is perfect quiet. When 

 we take a hive from the cellar with only about a pint of live bees, and 

 see about four or five quarts of dead bees around it, we can hardly say 

 that that colony lived through the winter; but when they can be placed 

 on their summer stands after 160 days' confinement, apparently as strong 

 as they were Nov. 1, then we can say we know something about win- 

 tering. This has been done, is being done, and can be done when they 

 are kept quiet. But it will be a long time before it can be accom- 

 plished where they are subjected to harsh disturbance during long north- 

 ern winters. September, 1907. 



