WINTERING. 
529 
The idea that thin walls are superior to thick 
because the sun's heat in spring passes through to 
warm the bees is certainly inaccurate. If the transitory 
advantage existed, it would be at the cost of constant 
loss, but it does not exist. Bees maintain 65°, and 
must uninterruptedly, though very slowly, lose heat 
through the hive walls until this becomes the tem- 
perature of the external air. Those, therefore, in the 
thicker hives will be warmer until this external tem- 
perature is reached, but before then the bees would 
be in full flight, and beyond the need of sun-warming. 
The non-conductivity of hives is almost as needful 
for summer as winter, and does not a little in aiding 
in checking the swarming fever. Single-sided hives 
may be covered with an outer case, and chaff packed 
between. Treated in this manner, single Stewarton 
boxes (Fig. 15) winter admirably. Chaff is filled in 
around, while 2in. or 3in. of it is patted down above. 
Weak stocks which it is desired to keep separate, 
for preserving queens perhaps, may be most success- 
fully managed in twin hives. Put them on such a 
small number of frames that they really help each 
other by clustering against opposite sides of the 
division-board. A sort of ante-chamber may be made 
by putting a division-board, with entrance-way beneath 
it, in front of one of the lots, so that the bees pass 
from under it into the ante-chamber, which has, on 
one side of it, the ordinary hive mouth, by which the 
open is reached. 
Whilst the population is strong and the external 
temperature not too low, bees ventilate their hive 
(page 277) by a system of fanners in different parts, 
VoL. II. 2 M 
