52 
AMEEICAiSr AGEICULTUEIST. ' [February, 
Bees in Winter Quarters—Dysentery. 
BY ^ V . ■/.. HUTCHINSON. , 
Bees sometimes tiie of starvation ; it is possible 
that -weak colonies, left unprotected on summer 
.stands, liave frozen to death ; while it is also possi¬ 
ble, though rather doubtful, that they have been 
smothered during the winter; but the greatest ob¬ 
stacle to successful wintering is the so-called 
“dysentery” or “bee-cholera.” All other losses 
combined are but as a drop in the bucket compared 
with those caused by this malady.—To sustain life 
and keep up the animal heat during the long cold 
winter, bees necessarily consume food, and in time 
the intestinal canal becomes filled with fecal mat¬ 
ter which bees are disinclined to void in the hive. 
They wait day after day for a rise in temperature 
that will enable them to fly in the open air and re¬ 
lieve their over-loaded intestines. If confined too 
long their abdomens become fearfully swollen, 
and no longer able to retain their faeces. These are 
voided in the hive, thus daubing bees, combs, honey 
and frames ; and the loathsome, sickening manner 
in which the unfortunate bees miserably perish can 
be more easily imagined than described. Sucb, in 
brief, is “ dysentery” or “ bee-cholera.” 
A warm day, with the mercury up to fifty or 
sixty degrees, enables bees to enjoy a “purifying 
flight,” and the suiwiving members of a colony, if 
not having suffered too severely from dysentery, 
will then sometimes set bravely to work and clean 
up their soiled plumage, and, if circumstances 
continue favorable, such colonies often “pull 
through,” but are more likely to “ spring dwin¬ 
dle,” which is usually the result of imperfect win¬ 
tering. The long retention of faeces so impairs a 
bee’s vitality that, though it may live until spring, 
it has not sufficient strength to withstand the 
chilling winds encountered in its first flight.— 
Many plans and methods have been devised to 
prevent or mitigate this dysentery. One man, at¬ 
tributing it to cold, builds a cellar or special win¬ 
ter repository. All goes well for several years, 
but at last, on some fine spring raoraing, he carries 
from his cellar hive after hive containing only dead 
bees and mouldy, ill-smelling, discolored combs, 
while his neighbor’s bees on the unprotected 
stands suffer no loss ; and thus the “ cold theory” 
falls to the ground. If it happens that his neigh¬ 
bor’s hives were well ventilated, he at once adopts 
the “ventilation theory,” and thereafter his hives 
are thoroughly ventilated. Again, all goes well 
until there comes a winter when his neighbor’s 
bees die and his own live, and down goes the “ ven¬ 
tilation theory.”—Others have considered damp¬ 
ness the chief foe to successful wintering, and, 
acting upon this belief, they have constructed cel¬ 
lars in which dryness is chiefly kept in view, some 
even going so far as to place a bag of unslaked 
lime over each colony. In some seasons and lo¬ 
calities bees have wintered admirably w'here the 
“ humidity theory ” was believed in and acted 
upon ; but in other seasons and localities they 
have miserably perished. Chaff hives, chaff pack¬ 
ing, etc., and various devices have been employed, 
and when the bees wintered well these devices 
have received the credit, and when they died, it is 
attributed to many and various causes. 
Cold alone does not produce dysentery, as bees 
wholly unprotected in exposed situations have 
■passed severe winters in perfect health, while 
others in the same situations have died before the 
winter was half gone. Confinement alone does 
not produce dysentery, as bees have been kept in 
cellars or special repositories five to six months 
without a trace of it, yet in another season they 
have died within three months after being placed 
in the same cellars. Want of ventilation does not 
produce dysentery, as bees have been kept in per¬ 
fect health buried in “ clamps,” where the only air 
reaching them during five long months was what 
passed through two feet of earth covering. But 
then again, clamps have been opened in spring 
only to find every colony dead from dysentery. 
Dampness alone is not the cause, as bees have 
been successfully wintered in cellars where there 
were running springs, and also where the owner, 
believing dampness beneficial, has shovelled in 
bushels and bushels of snow ; also in an out-door 
cellar covered with straw through which the snow, 
melted by the heat arising from the bees, has con¬ 
tinually dripped ; yet in similar damp situations 
bees have died from dysentery. 
It has been intimated that, if bees were kept in 
an atmosphere sufficient!}' dry and warm they 
would void their faeces in a dry state and remain 
healthy, but the fact that bees have suffered terri¬ 
bly from dysentery in the driest and warmest of 
cellars, makes a “ big hole” in the “ dry faeces 
theory.” Some have placed great stress upon the 
importance of not disturbing bees while in their 
winter quarters, while other equally successful 
apiarists open the hives and examine the bees 
once a week or so throughout the entire winter. 
These statements may appear, and doubtless are, 
discouraging to bee culture ; but they are facts, 
and why Ignore them ? This apparently conflict¬ 
ing character is what puzzles the novice, and it is 
only upon one hypothesis that they can be e.x- 
plained, viz. : that the primary cause of dysentery 
is in the food. Honey is not a chemically pure 
sweet, but contains more or less vegetable matter, 
as floating grains of pollen, etc. The proportion of 
vegetable matter differs with the season, the lo¬ 
cality, or the source from which it is gathered. 
Honey (?) gathered from the juiees of cracked or 
decayed fruits, from the cider mills, or from honey 
dew (the secretions of plant lice), is certainly not 
a pure sweet. The more vegetable matter present 
in honey eaten, the sooner will the intestinal canal 
become filled with fecal matter, and the shorter 
the time that confinement can be borne. Cold may 
aggravate the trouble, as it increases the consump¬ 
tion of food necessary to keep up animal heat, and 
thus sooner overloads the intestines, hence all pro¬ 
tection against cold is beneficial in so far as it les¬ 
sens the amount of food required. A cellar affords 
the best protection against cold, yet it is not always 
the best place lor wintering bees. Thus for exa,m- 
ple, if in any season the honey contains much vege¬ 
table matter, and the combs are well filled with 
pollen and an open winter follows, affording bees 
kept in the open air many opportunities for “ puri¬ 
fying flights,” spring finds them in a healthy con¬ 
dition ; while those in the cellar, though eating 
less honey, have had no opportunity to fly and 
discharge their faeces and have suffered severe¬ 
ly. Had the winter been severe and the cold 
long continued, with no warm “ spells,” the bees 
in-doors would have suffered just the same, while 
those in the open air would have been almost en¬ 
tirely swept away. If the honey of any season is 
very pure, and the following winter warm, out-door 
colonies will be entirely free from dysentery, and 
those in cellars will suffer but little if any. If the 
■winter be cold the health of cellar colonies will re¬ 
main the same, whiie those hives left exposed 
out-of-doors will probably suffer to a slight extent. 
With most diseases the best remedy is to remove 
the cause, and bee-cholera is not an exception. 
Unfortunately, however, there is no way of con¬ 
trolling the charaeter of the honey gathered, and 
no cheap, practical method of determining its fit¬ 
ness for winter stores after it has been gathered. 
The only plan left is to remove the honey at the 
end of the honey harvest, and replace it with that 
of assured fitness for winter food. Such a food is 
pure cane sugar. As a heat producer it is vastly 
superior to honey, hence a less quantity is con¬ 
sumed, while the residue left after digestion is very 
slight. Time and again has it been proved that 
this is an almost certain preventive of dysentery, 
and probably the main reason for its not having 
been more universally adopted is the trouble of 
extracting the honey at a time when robber bees are- 
very annoying, and of preparing and feeding the 
sugar. To this may be added, perhaps, the belief 
that “ the coming winter will be a good one for 
bees.” Then, too, if a bee-keeper does feed sugar 
to a few colonies,- and all his bees chance to win¬ 
ter alike, he at once concludes sugar is no better 
than honey, and the experiment is not repeated. 
But could he see, as the writer has, sugar-fed colo¬ 
nies carried from the cellar in spring, in fine condi¬ 
tion, dry, healthy, bright and clean, the bottom 
boards showing scarcely a handful of dead bees ; 
while colonies with natural stores, standing by 
their side, were dead and rotten” with dysentery ; 
or eould he see every out-door colony swept away 
except those having sugar stores ; eould he open a 
“ stand” in spring and find the colonies with sugar 
stores alive, strong, and healthy, while all the- 
others had suffered, and some had died, from dys¬ 
entery—could he see all this he might believe that 
“ vegetable matter” was the cause of the disease. 
To prepare the sugar for feeding, make a syrup by 
adding one quart boiling water to four pounds of 
pure granulated sugar—confectioner’s “ A.” Puri¬ 
ty is important. If practicable get a candy manu¬ 
facturer’s assistance in buying a pure article.—But 
though feeding sugar prevents dysentei^, it is ad¬ 
visable to protect bees, either by packing them in 
chaff on their summer stands, or carrying them into 
cellars, or burying them in “clamps.” The de¬ 
creased consumption of food by the bees will 
alone pay for the trouble that is thus occasioned 
A Second Story Wagon Box. 
Mr. L. D. Snook sends a sketch of a simple 
method of keeping an extra wagon or sleigh box in 
position, which we used at least forty-two years ago 
in marketing apples. Still; as it may not be familiar ■ 
even now to some readers, we present the engraving. 
The top, or extra box, is made of exactly the same- 
dimensions as the lower one and of any desired 
hight. Strong cieats are firmly nailed on the in¬ 
side at each corner, on the sides of the upper box, 
extending down well into the lower one, and so ■ 
closely to the end boards that it can slide neither 
forward nor backward. One or more side cleats 
are put on according to the strength of the upper 
boards and the pressure likely to come upon them. 
from the character of the load in the box. 
Dangerous Ladders. 
If left exposed to weather, as they usually are, 
no one knows how soon water will penetrate at 
some point, as in the holes for the rounds, and pro¬ 
duce decay and weakness, where all looks sound,, 
and a broken limb or neck may be the result. Mr. 
John Wagner, of Grant Co., Wis., advises to drive 
two pins in the side of a stable near the ceiling,, 
and hang the ladder there whenever not in use. 
He says they “ have one made of poplar, a perish¬ 
able wood, which has been thus kept for five years 
and is to-day as sound as new.”—Very good, but 
better still to put the pins on the side of a barn 
floor, when there is a place for the ladder there, as 
the stable is usually damp. The pins, -ivherever 
placed, need to have the outer ends elevated to 
keep the ladder from jarring or slipping off. We 
have seen the pins made from one end of a forked, 
limb, one fork forming the hook to hold the side 
of the ladder, as shown in the above engraving.. 
