32 AN EASY METHOD 



CHAPTER III. 



ON VENTILATING THE HIVE. 



Graduate the bottom board and ventilator at pleasure 

 by means of the button, or otherwise, so as to give them 

 more or less air, as circumstances may require. 



REMARKS. 



Bees require more air, in order to enable them to endure 

 the heat of summer and the seventy of vs^inter, than at any 

 other time. If they are kept out in the cold^they need as 

 much air in the winter as in the heat of summer. It is in a 

 mild temperature only that it is safe to keep them from the 

 pure air. If placed below frost, in a dry sand-bank, they 

 seem to need scarcely more than is contained in their hive 

 at the time they are buried, during the whole winter. If 

 kept in a clean, dry cellar, the mouth so constructed as to 

 keep out mice gives them enough. But if they are kept in 

 the apiary, there should be a slow, imperceptible current of 

 air constantly passing in at the bottom and off at the top 

 through the ventilator, to let the excess of animal heat escape 

 in the hottest weather in summer, and also to throw off the 

 vapor caused by the breath and other exhalations of the bees, 

 which causes frost and ice in the hive in winter, and which is 

 frequently the cause of the death of the bees. 



A proper ventilation at all times during the season for 

 raising young bees is highly necessary. Several evils are to 

 be guarded against. Too much air in April, May, and even 



