116 PROTECTION. 



well-ascertained law in our animal economy, that all muscU' 

 lar exertion is attended with a corresponding waste of mus- 

 cular fibre. Now this waste must be supplied by the 

 consumption of food, and it would be quite as unreasonable 

 to expect constant heat from a stove without fresh supplies 

 of fuel, as incessant muscular activity from an insect, with- 

 out a supply of food proportioned to that activity. If then 

 we can contrive any plan to keep our bees in almost perfect 

 quiet during the Winter, we may be certain that they will 

 need much less food than when they are constantly excited. 



In the cold Winter of 1851-2, I kept two swarms in a 

 perfectly dry and dark cellar, where the temperature was 

 remarkably uniform, seldom varying two degrees from 50° 

 of Fahrenheit ; and found that the bees ate very little honey. 

 The hives were of glass, and the bees, when examined from 

 time to time, were found clustered in almost death-like 

 repose. If these bees had been exposed in thin hives, in the 

 open air, they would, whenever the sun shone upon them, 

 or the atmosphere was unusually warm, have been roused 

 to injurious activity, and the same would have been the case, 

 when the cold was severe : exposed to sudden changes and 

 severe cold, they would have been in almost perpetual mo- 

 tion, and must have been compelled to consume a largely 

 increased allowance of food. In this way, many colonies 

 are annually starved to death, which if they had been better 

 protected, would have survived to gladden their owner with 

 an abundant harvest. This protection, as a general thing, 

 cannot be given to them in a cellar, which is rarely dry 

 enough to prevent the combs from moulding, and the bees 

 from becoming diseased. 



Bees never, unless diseased, discharge their fasces in the 

 hive ; and the want of suitable protection, by exciting undue 

 activity, and compelling them to eat more freely, causes 



