142 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ Febiuary 13, 1890. 
To prevent every form of dysentery I feed every stock in autumn 
■with a few pounds of the best sugar syrup, covering closely on top 
and sides with soft well-dried meadow hay, narrow entrances with 
•space below ventilating floor, which gives an entire immunity from 
damp, unless upon the very top of hay on top of hive, which is the 
index to a dry hive and healthy bees within. The syrup will tide 
them over in safety until April, when an examination may take 
place, but as little as possible. I always make sure that March 
will not find hungry bees, it being the worst month in the whole 
year to have hungry bees or weak hives. But the considerate bee¬ 
keeper will seldom have to manipulate one way or another with 
bees during the winter and spring months, unless with chance 
nuclei not intended to be kept over winter during September. As 
the foregoing hints plainly show what to do in the case of an 
«mergency, and what to avoid in winter and spring, I will now say 
something on another subject. 
Winter Preparation. 
I have shown that bees can be kept healthy during winter ; but 
this may be done, and yet with all care many hives may be lost on 
the sudden rise of temperature during January, February, and 
March, which takes place on the breaking up of a snowstorm or 
immediately after a snowfall when the day is lengthening. On 
these occasions the bees rush out of their hives in great numbers, 
■either to be lost among the newly fallen snow or chilled to death 
in the melted water, rendered all the colder by the partially melted 
ice lying everywhere about where the snow has been trod, or in all 
hollows. To prevent any mishaps at these times the bee-keeper 
■should be on the watch, and whenever signs of a rise in temperature is 
indicated by thermometer and barometer the doorways of the hives 
should be effectually closed, and ventilation afforded by some other 
part. On no account close the entrances of hives with wire-cloth 
or perforated zinc, as being sufficient for the purpose, for the bees 
will crowd to it, and then suffocation soon follows. The hive that 
•cannot be properly ventilated on these occasions is a very imper¬ 
fect one. 
The beginner will now have a fair idea what a hive to winter 
bees in should possess. Long before the winter sets in site and 
appearance of the hive, as well as the arrangement of it, should be 
completed. Only the other day a loose cover of cloth was blown 
from a heap of odds and ends lying near the ground and blown 
between two hives, which marred the bees, and many were lost 
although the front was perfectly open. Perhaps during this time, 
when so much influenza is about, it may not be out of place to 
state that many such colds are contracted by the patient having 
previously heated himself by putting on more clothing than was 
necessary, just as I have often witnessed thinly clad children keep¬ 
ing free from colds until new shoes or other garments had been 
added. Something similar to this arises with bees when their 
•doorway is contracted or widened during changes of weather in 
winter. A uniform degree of heat at aU times is what should be 
studied with our persons, as we .should do with hives of bees. 
When bees are placed into a hive the first thing they do is to 
make the top of the hive air-tight, but in a great measure dis¬ 
regarding the sides, and wholly the bottom. Their instinct teaches 
them that any draught whatever above them has the evil influence 
of cooling the interior of the hive, sending moisture into the honey, 
and making the bees restive and unhealthy. 
Although these facts might be apparent to a mere child, yet 
leaders in bee-keeping matters advocate in favour of the American 
plan of making a cavity overhead the bees either by bent sticks or 
a ceil of candy, a more unsuitable food for bees than honey, 
although excellent as a substitute when neither honey nor syrup 
can be conveniently given. The advocates of this space overhead 
tell us that it is the warm place of the hive where the bees are 
fond of creeping into. Common sense would say that the bees 
finding a draught overhead endeavour to fill up the vacuum, and 
by so doing they retreat above their natural stores, leaving them 
unprotected from both animal enemies and the humid atmosphere, 
which renders honey unwholesome and the pollen of the hive a 
capital nidus for the germs of foul brood. Where is the heat to 
come from to heat the upper cavity with cold ceil of candy, but 
from the some bees that would, had Nature not been perverted, 
remained in their hive in a healthy state as Nature had dictated, 
keeping their stores wholesome and protected from damp and other 
enemies ? 
The beginner should use his judgment in detecting between 
right and wrong, and his wisdom in rejecting the latter. Some 
writers have led themselves and others astray by comparing bees 
to other animals’ wants of breathing space, overlooking the fact 
that there is a wide difference between the insect and the biped or 
quadruped in their breathing functions. From 50,000 to 100,000 
bees will cluster into a space, and be so crowded that more would 
have to lie out. Yet with only a very small doorway the whole 
cluster will remain healthy. Pack as many men in a proportion- 
able space, with a proportionable doorway, an epidemic of some 
sort would soon be upon them. 
It is altogether impracticable to make comparisons between 
bees and man. Bees require air, but a very small stream of it 
suffices from the fact that, unlike man or other animals, they carry 
a supply with them in addition to their immediate wants, and it is 
through this supply being heated in the system that enables bees 
to survive our arctic winters when allowed to repose quietly in 
that state termed hybernating by “ A. H. B. K.” This natural 
heated air given out by one bee and inhaled by another, has never 
been mentioned before, and the cause of dysentery amongst bees is 
when the arrangement of the hive is defective, or when bees are 
disturbed so as to exhaust the heated air, and are unable to take in 
and heat a new supply, disease follows.—A. L. B. K. 
(To be continued.) 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Benjamin Wallace Knight, North Trade Nursery, Battle, Sussex.— 
Catalogue of New and Choice Plants. 
T. T. Green, Duke Street, Settle, Yorkshire.— Desorijitive Spring 
Catalogue, 1890. 
Friedrich Adolph Haage, Jun., Erfurt.— Illustrated Catalogue oj 
Plants and Seeds. 
Webb &; Sons, Wordsley, Stourbridge.— Annual Catalogue of Farm 
Seeds. 
James Yates, Stockport.— Catalogue of Vegetahleand Flower Seeds. 
Strachan & Thomson, 145, Union Street, Aberdeen.— Catalogue of 
Vegetable and Flower Seeds. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “ The 
Editor” or to “The Publisher.” Letters addressed to 
Dr. Hogg or members of the staff often remain unopened 
unavoidably. We request that no one will write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than two or three questions at once. AJl 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the 
post, and we do not undertake to return rejected communica¬ 
tions. 
Drainage (-F -V.).—We do not understand what you mean, for you 
first write malting very plainly, and then just as plainly matting. If 
you can state the nature of the drainage we will endeavour to ascertain 
its probable constituents. 
