WINTERING BEES. 
335 
CHAPTER XXI. 
WINTERING BEES. 
As soon as frosty weather arrives, bees cluster com¬ 
pactly together in their hives, to keep warm. They are 
never dormant, like wasps and hornets (p. 110), and a 
thermometer pushed up among them will show a Summer 
temperature, even when, in the open air, it is many 
degrees below zero. When the cold becomes intense, 
they keep up an incessant tremulous motion, in order to 
develop more heat by active exercise; and, as those on 
the outside of the cluster become chilled, they are ro 
placed by others. 
As all muscular exertion requires food to supply the 
waste of the system, the more quiet bees can be kept, the 
less they will eat. It is, therefore, highly important to 
preserve them, as far as possible, in Winter, from every 
degree, either of heat or cold, which will arouse them to 
great activity. 
The usual mode of allowing them to remain all Winter 
on their Summer stands, is, in cold climates, very objec¬ 
tionable. In those parts of the country, however, where 
the cold is seldom so severe as to prevent them from 
Hying, at frequent intervals, from their hives, perhaps no 
better way, all things considered, can be devised. In 
such favored regions, bees are but little removed from 
their native climate, and their wants may be easily sup¬ 
plied, without those injurious effects which commonly 
result from disturbing them when the weather is so cold 
as to confine them entirely to their hives. 
If the stocks are to be wintered in the open air, they 
