26 
BEECULTDKE. 
bees run down the inside of the hive and freezing on the 
lower edges, make them air-tight and smothering the bees. 
Some of the difficulties to be encountered by in-door win- 
tering, are — keeping them confined too long from water and 
from emptying themselves ; although they will suffer but lit- 
tle from the first of December until the first of March. If 
they are kept in damp cellars or buried in damp ground, the 
combs will mould and the honey sour and disease the bees. 
VENTILATION. 
In whatever manner bees are wintered, care must be taken 
that they have air, and are kept dry. If any one doubts 
whether bees can be smothered, let him confine a swarm in 
an air-tight box for an hour, and shake them occasionally to 
keep them active, and he will find his bees all dead and as 
moist as though they had been drenched in water. In hot 
weather, whilst transporting a strong colony of bees, nothing 
less than a whole side or end of a common-sized hive covered 
with a loosely woven cloth or wire gauze is sufficient to se- 
cure a colony from smothering ; yet when bees are still and 
cool in the dark, they require butlitleair. This is evidenced 
by the fact, as persons of credibility have informed me, that 
having attempted to smother a colony of bees in the fall of 
the year by burying them in a chip-yard, after taking all of 
their honey, in the spring on digging up the chips, they found 
living bees. I have buried several colonies ol them together 
in the ground, in a dry place, covering them first with 
boards, and then with a layer of straw or fodder, then with 
ten inches of clay, leaving plenty of openings in the hives, 
and having a large tube run up through the top to give up- 
ward ventilation ; but in this case, as in damp cellars, the 
combs are inclined to mould; and being so very closely con- 
fined they become unhealthy after being set out in the spring. 
What I consider the best in-door arrangement for winter, 
that I have used, and for this hint I am indebted to M. 
Quinby, the author of the “'Mysteries of Bee-keeping/’ one 
of the most valuable and practical of bee-books, is a room par- 
titioned off in a cellar especially for bees. Mine was ten feet 
square. The walls were made by settingup four inch scant- 
ling, nailing boards on both sides and filling between with 
sawdust, so that the temperature would not be suddenly af- 
