WINTBEING BEES. 291 



done but little ; you would have lost it eventually. But 

 had it been a colony otherwise healthy, and was thus af- 

 fected only because it was small, or by the severity of 

 the weather, you could have taken it to a warm room, 

 and turned it bottom up, or giv6n it abundant upward 

 ventilation, and the heat would have converted most of 

 the water contained in their food, into vapor. This 

 would rise from the hive, and the bees could retain the 

 excrementitious portion without difficulty till spring." 



" I suppose you must get along without losing many 

 through the winter, if I may judge from your confident 

 explanations." 



"I can assure you I have but little fear on this point. 

 If I can have the privilege of selecting suitable stocks, I 

 will engage to not lose one in a hundred." 



" How do you manage ? I would be glad to obtain a 

 method with which I could feel as perfectly safe as you 

 appear to." 



" The first requisite is to have none but gx)od hives. I 

 unite weak families until they become strong, or make 

 some other disposition of them." I then gave him an 

 outline of my usual method of housing bees, which I can 

 confidently recommend to the reader. 



This accumulation of fceces is considered by many 

 writers as a disease — a kind of dysentery. It is described 

 as afiecting them towards spring, and several remedies 

 are given. If what I have been describing is not the 

 dysentery, I have never had a case of it ; but I think it 

 is the same, and that inattention must be the reason that 

 many do not discover- it in- cold weather, at the time that 

 it occurs. Some stocks may be badly affected, yet not 

 entirely lost, and nioderate weather may arrest its pro- 

 gress. When a remedy is applied in spring, long after 

 the cause ceases to operate, it would be singular ^f it 

 were not effectual. I have no doubt but some have taken 



