20 
BEE-CILTURE. 
upward the better to retain the honey. The combs in tho 
side and top of the hive are filled with honey, and when 
capped over are about one-fourth of an inch apart. The 
middle and lower ends of the combs arc occupied by brood, 
and when filled are one inch thick ; when emptied of young 
bees they arc still less, leaving a space of about five-eighths 
of an inch. This is the winter quarters for the bees. 
Bees can only keep up the necessary temperature 
OE BLOOD HEAT IN MIDWINTER BY HOVERING IN A COM- 
PACT cluster. If all the combs in the hive were sheets of 
cold honey, only one-fourth of an inch apart, they would 
afford the bees rather cool lodgings, and they would certainly 
perish. But as the young bees are about through hatching 
by the first of November, the bees will crawl into the empty 
cells in the middle of the hive and fill the space between tho 
combs, thus making a compact cluster presenting but little 
surface to the cool air; and empty combs being non-con- 
ductors of heat, they are enabled to economize their heat 
most admirably ; hence it may be seen a colony may have too 
much honey to winter well. A good, populous colony will, 
in this way, if kept dry, endure the rigors of the most severe 
winters in the United States. In warm days they will carry 
some honey in from the sides and top of the hive, and deposit 
it in the cells in the centre of the cluster, where they may 
have access to it in severe weather, to prevent venturing out 
in the cold parts of the hive for it. This gives rise to the 
idea that bees eat most in warm weather. But there seem to 
be cases where the extreme cold is so protracted, that the 
bees, having consumed all the honey deposited in the clus- 
ter, and there being frost and ice on all parts of the comb 
containing the honey, they may starve in the cluster with 
plenty of honey around them. The bees on the outside of 
the cluster will change places with those further in, and in 
extremely cold weather the whole colony will resort to an 
agitating motion to generate heat. Visit a large apiary in a 
very cold, calm morning, and the hum may be heard two or 
three rods; in moderate weather they cannot be heard. 
This discomfort and increased activity of the bees seems to 
create a greater demand for food. As a matter of economy 
some protection should be necessary. When the combs are 
entire from top to bottom, with no holes in the centre of them 
to admit of the passing of the bees from the outside to tho 
