VENTILATION OF HIVES. 191 



success of Bee-keepers depends. If we consider Bees 

 as we should human beings, we should not err greatly in 

 the treatment and construction of their domiciles. With 

 proper ventilation, Langstroth says : " No amount of 

 cold that we ever have will injure Bees;" and as he 

 records the temperature of January, 1857, ^^ 3° degrees 

 below zero, which is never reached in England, I do not 

 think we need fear. We all know a cold dry winter is 

 more healthy than a mild wet one, even though the 

 temperature of the latter should be many degrees 

 higher ; and a large airy bed-room, with window open, 

 is preferable to a small close one with sand-bags and 

 appliances to keep the cold out. Langstroth cites a case 

 where twenty hives were in a row, one suspended 20 

 inches from the ground, without a ' bottom board, th,e 

 others in the usual condition for wintering. The whole 

 got very wet ; the nineteen died, and the one survived, 

 having been able to get rid of the moisture. One of our 

 most successful Apiarians mentioned to me that a hive 

 which gave him a super of 76 pounds weight, in 1874, 

 was wintered without a crown-board, but covered with 

 an empty super, and, as the result showed, with advan- 

 tage to the Bees. 



On making an examination of my stocks early in 

 February, 1875, I found one hive, a part of whose 

 movable crown-board had slipped aside, exposing 

 several square inches of the top freely to the air, but, 

 fortunately, not to the rain. This stock was then by far 

 the strongest of many, and had a fair show of larvae 

 growing up to Bee-hood. 



A wooden crown-board tightly fastened to the hive's 

 top keeps the cold out and the wet in, and some means 

 must be adopted to obviate this. When the hive is a 

 simple box, with the combs built from the top, a loose pad 



