WINTERING BEES. 
337 
singular if it was not effectual. I have no doubt but 
some have taken the natural discharge of faeces, that 
always takes place in spring when the bees leave the 
hive, for a disease. Others, when looking for a cause 
for diseased brood, and found the combs and hive 
somewhat besmeared, have assigned this as sufficient; 
but according to my view, have reversed it, giving 
the effect before the cause. 
THE AUTHOR’S REMEDY. 
For a time, I supposed that this moisture on the 
combs gradually mixed with the honey, making it 
thin, and that the bees eating so much water with 
their food, would affect them as described. Some ex- 
periments that followed, induced me to assign cold as 
the cause, as I always found, when I put them where 
it was sufficiently warm, that an immediate cure was 
the result, or at least, it enabled them to retain their 
faeces till set out in the spring. 
BURYING BEES. 
Burying.bees in the earth below the frost, has been 
recommended as a superior method of wintering, for 
small families. I have known it confidently asserted, 
that they would lose nothing in weight, and no bees 
would die. I found, in testing it, that a medium quan- 
tity of honey sufficed, and but very few were lost, per- 
haps less than by any other method. Yet the combs 
were mouldy, and unfit for further use. There was 
no escape for the vapor and dampness of the earth, 
15 
