WINTER MANAGEMENT. 235 
hive, and about the stand or house, to prevent the 
chance of reflection, which always injuriously arouses 
the bees, and also for better security from the 
moist exhalations incident to thawing. 
Since the original draft of this chapter was in 
type, our attention has been attracted by a valuable 
paper upon ‘‘Wintering Bees,” which was read by 
Mr. Cowan, of Horsham, to a recent meeting of the 
British Bee-Keepers’ Association. The greater part of 
his recommendations we have been glad to incorpo- 
rate into either the following or the preceding pages, 
and to the above preliminary statement of essential 
conditions we have first to add the necessity of keep- 
ing up the temperature as high and as even as 
possible, and the paramount importance of a large 
population, which can only continue such by com- 
mencing the winter with a goodly number of young 
bees. This latter item is obviously a practical con- 
sideration for the summer and autumn; what is here 
to be remarked upon is its value in a theoretical 
point of view, and the manner in which its pheno- 
mena and the temperature of the hive act and react 
upon each other. 
We have already stated and accounted for the 
apparent paradox of a large colony requiring no more 
winter sustenance than a small one. There is hence 
everything to be gained and nothing to be lost by 
collecting as numerous a population as the hive will 
contain. In winter we know that our insects live 
several times longer than they do in the gathering 
season, and consequently it might follow that a 
colony of exclusively summer-hatched bees would live 
