FIFTY YEARS AMONG THE BEES 303 



severest weather, the outside cellar door is more or less open, 

 and the air in the cellar is sweeter than in many — perhaps 

 most — living-rooms.' That's good for the people living over 

 the cellar, and it must be good for the bees. Inside the hives 

 the combs are just as dry and nice as in summer. No damp- 

 ness, no mould, no musty smell. 



It seems nice to look into a hive and find so few dead bees 

 lying on the bottom-board, often none. When a bee wants to 

 die, it is warm enough so it can come outside, just as in sum- 

 mer. 



It would be better if it was so arranged that fresh air 

 could enter without the light. During the first part of the 

 winter, the bees do not seem to mind the light at all, and not 

 very much till toward spring, when the door must be closed 

 in daytime. But there is no need to be unduly frightened by 

 a few bees coming out; for bees will get old and die off, no 

 matter how dark the cellar is kept; and there may be some 

 question whether a little light is as bad as the fouler air when 

 the cellar is closed. 



GOOD WINTERING. 



Having had such a severe lesson, you may be sure that in 

 succeeding years I took pains to see that before the bees went 

 into the cellar they had enough stores to stand a winter tem- 

 perature of 50 or 60 degrees. The result has been very grati- 

 fying. I no longer have anxiety about wintering, and do not 

 expect any colonies to die unless it be from queenlessness. 



Some one may say, "But why don't you make sure that no 

 queenless colony goes into the cellar!" Possibly that might 

 be better ; but I doubt. The queenless colony is not worth very 

 much at that time of year, and anything that would be done 

 with it would hardly pay for the trouble of hunting through a 

 number of colonies causing them no little disturbance. 



On the whole I am quite in favor of a furnace in cellar. 

 To be sure, it does away with one argument in favor of cellar- 

 ing, for there may be as heavy consumption of stores as on the 

 summer stands, but that is greatly overbalanced by having the 

 bees practically outdoors all winter in a very mild climate. 

 For with the abundance of fresh air allowed, are they not 

 practically outdoors? Besides that, I think the bees are 



