Iiifluciicc of Temperature in Wintering Bees. 183 



but, before going down, let's light this candle. A candle is safer and bet- 

 ter than a lamp. The light is not so bright and does not seem to disturb 

 the bees in the least. They will not leave the cluster and fly at it as they 

 will at a bright lamp light. Now we are down in the cellar. Listen again. 

 Yes, there is a faint murmur ; like a cataract miles and miles away — 

 like the soft winds at night blowing through the tops of tall pines. 

 First, let's look at the thermometer. Dry bulb 45 degrees, wet bulb, 

 42. That's good. There was only one degree diilerence when the bees 

 were first put in the cellar, but a barrel of lime put into eight or ten 

 pails and set around in different parts of the cellar soon dried out 

 the air. 



No, there are no bottom boards on the hive, nor any covers. The 

 tops of the frames are covered with two thicknesses of old carpet. 

 Let's turn up the corners of some of these pieces of carpet. See the 

 little yellow fellows tucked away there so snug, row after row between 

 the white combs. See how quiet they are, how slim, how clean. If 

 they stir at all it simply is to raise slowly a wing, or a leg or the point of 

 the abdomen. Let's look under a hive. Is there any sight in bee-keeping 

 more beautiful than that? See that great, golden-brown cluster of bees 

 hanging down beneath the combs until it actually touches the covering 

 of the hive two inches below. Let's watch them. Do ynu see a bee 

 move? My little grandson was up here with me a few days ago, and 

 he said, "Grandpa, your bees are all dead." I asked him what made 

 him think so. "Why, they don't stir," wa.s his reply. His previous 

 experiences with bees had been with those that "stirred." 



Can you doubt for one moment that bees in this condition are 

 wintering perfectly? When I wake in the night there is actually a com- 

 fortable feeling comes over me when I think of those bees snuggled 

 away there, sleeping away the winter with their heads pillowed on snowy 

 combs of sweetness. Some people talk about the cruelty of wintering 

 bees in a dark, dismal cellar. Of course, there are many cellars which 

 are not fit for the wintering of bees, but, with conditions ideal, there is 

 no more comfortable place in winter for bees than in a cellar, and no 

 manner of wintering them in which their energies are more perfectly 

 conserved for the coming of spring. 



TEMPERATURE. 



Having briefly considered cellars, let us come back to the subject 

 of temperature ; and, by the way, I am certain that I can do no better 

 than to quote a few paragraphs upon this subject from an article con- 

 tributed by Mr. R. L. Taylor to one of. the early numbers of the Bee- 

 keepers' Review. Among other things, Mr. Taylor said : 



I think it a trutli not to be forgotten that no one can determine, except 

 approximately, the best temperature for bees in another's repository. The 



