WINTER MANAGEMENT. 243 
others. We have above referred to the use of covers 
of bast matting, the natural porosity of which per- 
mits of ventilation without any necessity for a 
condenser or vapour-room. In making use of a 
covering of this nature Mr. Cowan ensured a passage- 
way to the bees over the tops of the frames by 
means of splints of wood five-eighths of an inch 
thick, and reaching across the bars as far as the 
insects were likely to pass. This quilt, he tells us 
(for he employed drugget), should hang half-way 
down over each end of the hive, when it will act 
on the syphon principle so as to carry away the 
moisture. 
But damp exhalations are not the only evils 
which ventilation is required to meet. Vitiated air, 
or in other words carbonic acid gas, as the product 
of the insects’ breathing and perspiration, has to 
be got rid of, and either of the above measures is 
effectual also in answering this end. The porosity of 
the bast gives it an advantage over arrangements 
involving the opening of holes or leaving of crevices, 
by propping up the crown-board, or setting its divi- 
sions slightly apart, inasmuch as by the use of that 
material the draughts from the flight-hole to these 
openings are reduced to a minimum, if not altogether 
done away with. To open a feed-hole which would 
place the cluster of bees in a direct line between it 
and the entrance, would obviously be a most ill-judged 
proceeding ; but on the contrary, if the cluster is con- 
fined by dummies to one end of the hive, while the 
opening into the vapour-room is made at the other, 
there will be no mischief to apprehend. There is no 
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