WINTERING. ; 51 
anifal heat ncarer the centre of the cluster. In low, 
broad hives, even with winter passages provided, whole 
swarms often perish in like manner, having eaten their 
way to the honey board.* 
With the thermometer at or near zero, a large swarm of 
bees will cluster in a circle of eight or ten inches. Hence 
it becomes evident, that in a hive of proper proportions, 
with suitable winter passages, the bees will pass through 
them to the interior of the hive—the swarm thus expand- 
ing and contracting as the cold diminishes or increases. 
For similar reasons bees winter more safely in the four- 
colony hive than in either double or single ones, where 
both are alike exposed to the winds and frosts of winter. 
Ventilation—A ventilating passage should be secured for 
a supply of fresh air, even during the coldest weather. 
This may be done by making a small bee passage 
through the movable front near its top, like that at its 
bottom, and leaving both open. A better way, however, 
to ventilate a swarm of bees in my hive is, to place in the 
fall, clean, gauze-wire cloth over the holes in the honey 
board, and fill the top chamber with fine straw, chaff, 
shavings, or other dry, porous material. This will allow 
sufficient air, and at the same time absorb the moisture 
* « The Langstroth hive had also been introduced into a number of apiaries, 
ours among others. From the glowing accounts which I had heard of it while 
in California, I expected to find the desideratum long sought for by apiarists, 
and as a result of its introduction into our apiaries, that they would be ina 
highly flourishing condition, particularly that portion of the stock contaired 
in the new style of hive. In this I was doomed to disappointment, as most of 
the bees that had been put into them had died of starvation, they having 
eaten all the stores from the bottom to the top of the hive, in the centre of a 
diameter equal to the size of the cluster, leaving an abundance of stores still. 
within the hive, but owing to the severe cold, the bees were unable to reach 
them.’”’--J. S. Harbison, in Bee Culture, p. 31. 
