302 FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 



they were allowed to stay right where they were to see what 

 the result would be. They wintered beautifully — until they 

 died. They starved to death, and that not so very late in 

 winter, although I think they were well supplied with stores. 

 No doubt the heat kept them so active that they used up their 

 stores with unusual rapidity. 



BAD WINTERING. 



Under the circumstances I figured on considerable loss. 

 The loss went beyond my figuring. Not that the deaths all 

 occurred in the cellar. They were largely after the bees were 

 taken out in the spring; none the less, however, they were 

 chargeable to bad wintering. By the 12th of May there were 

 left only 124 colonies out of 199 put in cellar, and many of 

 them were mere nuclei. A loss of 37 per cent was not gratify- 

 ing; but, beekeeperlike, I looked forward hopefully to the next 

 winter. 



Alas for my hopes! Instead of 37 per cent, the loss for 

 the winter of 1903-04 was 47 per cent, leaving 150 colonies 

 alive out of 284. And the loss was mainly due to lack of 

 sufficient stores. Some of them had died in the cellar, and 

 more would have died there if they had not been taken out a 

 little earlier than was well, so they could be fed. But feed- 

 ing very early in spring is not so well as having an abundance 

 of stores in the fall, and the mortality continued well along 

 in spring. The fact that after so many years of experience, 

 and after advising others always to have abundant stores for 

 winter, I should have lost colonies by the score through starva- 

 tion, was humiliating indeed. 



But conditions were new and I needed to learn that in a 

 eellar with the thermometer generally ranging from 50 to 60, 

 and sometimes going higher, bees consume stores much more 

 rapidly than at a lower temperature, and to the increasing 

 number of those who are putting furnaces in cellars, I would 

 say, "Look out for starvation." 



But along with the disadvantage mentioned, there are not 

 lacking advantages. Perhaps I ought to say advantage rather 

 than advantages, for the one great advantage is that of an 

 abundant supply of pure, fresh air, Except in the very 



