72 MISCELLANEOUS PAPEES OX API CULTURE. 
The greatest obstacle in the control of swarming is the fact that 
the activities bringing on swarming are so little understood. This 
phenomenon represents the bee's natural method of increasing the 
number of colonies, and it' may be attributed to instinct. This, 
however, does not explain what factors induce the bees to swarm or 
what their activities are previous to swarming. When the behavior 
of the bees before and during swarming is better understood, we may 
have greater hope of a method of control. 
Winter losses. — The losses in winter are considerable, due largely 
to starvation, dampness, too long a time without a cleansing flight, 
or extreme cold weather. By wintering bees in cellars in the North 
this loss may be considerably reduced, but while much has been 
written on this subject the general loss to northern bee keepers is 
probably at least 10 per cent every winter. An even temperature of 
about 45° F. and a dry atmosphere are considered best, and the best 
method of obtaining these conditions is an individual problem. 
Where bee keepers do not pay any attention to the selection of 
their best stock for breeding purposes, the loss of 10 per cent or more 
of their colonies in winter must not be looked on as a total loss, for 
generally the poorest colonies succumb. In the southwestern part 
of the United States the winter problem can be said not to exist in 
the way it does in the North, and, as a result, a large part of the 
bees kept there are of poor stock, vastly inferior in many cases to 
equally neglected stock in portions of the country where winters are 
severe. 
On the other hand, in these warmer portions of the country it is 
necessary to leave much heavier stores of honey in the hives to carry 
the colonies over from one season of activity to the next, so that 
" wintering" is very expensive. It has been suggested seriously that 
colonies be placed in cold storage for several months to save this 
heavy consumption. 
" Winter loss" is in many cases caused by disease, which so weakens 
the colony during the summer that it is not able to survive the winter. 
In such cases the bee keeper is usually ignorant of disease. 
Waste of wax. — Xo other manipulation of the apiary is so primitive 
as wax extraction and nowhere is there more room for improvement. 
As every bee keeper knows, it is difficult to remove wax from the 
comb, particularly in the case of old combs which have been used for 
brood rearing for years. The amount of wax wasted every year by 
inadequate methods of extraction amounts to thousands of dollars 
annually. In most cases over 10 per cent of the wax remains in the 
" slumgum, " and even by careful work 5 per cent is left. By repeated 
rendering, the amount may be reduced, but the time necessary for 
this usually makes it unprofitable. 
