WINTERING. 343 



Avri.v that rendered the frames immovable. In the Fall, we 

 extracted ('J'49) from the brood-chamber of nearly every 

 colony, as was then our practice, leaving only seven Quinby 

 frames on an average— for Winter. The colonies that had 

 crooked combs were left with all their stores— ten frames— 

 because we could not disturb them without breaking combs, 

 and causing leakage and robbing, and it was not the proper 

 season to transfer (SHi) them. These colonies did not have 

 to be fed, the following Spring, became very strong, and 

 yielded the largest crop. This untried-for result caused us 

 to make further experiments, which proved that there is a 

 profit in leaving, to strong colonies, a large quantity of honey, 

 so that they will not limit their Spring breeding. 



636. The quality of the bee-food is an important matter 

 in wintering bees. Protracted cold weather compels them to 

 eat large quantities of honey, filling their intestines with fecal 

 matter which they cannot void, for bees never discharge their 

 fseces in the hive, unless they are confined too long, or greatly 

 disturbed. 



Unhealthy food in prolonged confinement, sooner or later 

 causes diarrhoea (784), not only in wintering out of doors, 

 but in cellar wintering (6'il:6), and in shipping bees long 

 distances (587). * 



Diarrhoea, or as some call it, dysentery, in bees, is not 

 properly a disease, since it is only caused by the retaining 

 in the abdomen, of a large amount of excrements, which in 

 ordinary circumstances would be voided regularly. Whenever 

 bees have been confined for two weeks or more, they discharge 

 in flight excrements which soil everything about the apiary. 

 The housekeeper avoids hanging clothes out to dry on such 

 days. These excrements or feeces, from a reddish yellow to a 

 muddy black in color, according to the quality of the food 

 eaten, have an intolerably offensive smell. In excessive con- 

 finement, with a large consumption, from any cause, of more 

 or less healthy food, when bees can no longer retain the excre- 

 ments in their distended abdomen, they void them upon one 



