ARTIFICIAL HEAT 
77 
lected. See Queens, Queen-rearing, and 
Drones. 
ARTIFICIAL HEAT.— As strong colo¬ 
nies early in the season are the ones that 
get the honey and furnish the early swarms 
as well, and are in fact the real source of 
profit to the beekeeper, it is not to be won¬ 
dered at that much time and money have 
been spent in devising ways and means 
whereby all might be brought up to the 
desired strength in time for the first yield 
of honey. As market gardeners and oth¬ 
ers hasten early vegetables by artificial heat, 
or by taking advantage of the sun’s rays 
by greenhouses, it would seem that some¬ 
thing of the kind might be done with bees; 
in fact, the author, by the aid of the heat 
of a stove, has succeeded in rearing young- 
bees every month in the year in a green¬ 
house, even while the weather outside was 
at zero or lower; but the scheme resulted 
in failure, so far as profit was concerned. 
The bees, it is true, learned to fly under 
the glass and come back to their hives; but 
for every bee that was raised in confine¬ 
ment, two or three were sure to die, from 
one cause or another. 
Experiments have been conducted on a 
large scale at Ashtabula, Ohio, where there 
is about 10 acres under glass. The owner 
of one of the large greenhouses tried out 
the experiment of seeing what he could do 
in raising bees in a spring or summer tem¬ 
perature under control. He noted that 
they pollinated his cucumber blossoms; 
and if he could raise bees under glass he 
could recuperate his loss by raising a fresh 
supply of bees during the months when he 
was raising cucumbers. The experiment 
of raising bees was a failure, but the pol¬ 
linating of the blossoms was a perfect suc¬ 
cess. See Pollen. 
At another time experiments were made 
with artificial heat Avhile the bees were al¬ 
lowed to fly out at pleasure; and, altho 
it seemed at first to have the desired effect, 
so far as hastening brood-rearing was con¬ 
cerned, the result was, in the end, just 
about as before; more bees were reared, 
but the unseasonable activity killed off 
twice as many as were reared, and the 
stocks that w r ere let alone in the good old 
way came out ahead. 
Attempts have been made in the way. 
of using small electric heating coils in the 
top of individual colonies under packing 
for the purpose of holding an even tem¬ 
perature in the hive irrespective of out¬ 
side weather conditions. The colonies im¬ 
mediately went to brood-rearing; but, as 
might be expected, breeding always forced 
the bees out of the hive for water and pol¬ 
len. All attempts to heat individual colo¬ 
nies by means of electricity, like all simi¬ 
lar attempts, have ended in failure. 
For the benefit of those who may be 
inclined to experiment, the author would 
state that he covered almost his entire api¬ 
ary one spring with manure on the plan of 
a hotbed, and had the mortification of see¬ 
ing nearly all the bees die of spring dwin¬ 
dling. Another time he kept the house- 
apiary warmed up to a summer tempera¬ 
ture with a large oil lamp, for several 
weeks, just to have them beat those out of 
doors. The investment resulted in losing 
nearly all the house-apiarv with spring 
dwindling, while those outside stayed in 
their hives, as honest bees should, until 
settled warm weather, and then did finely, 
just because he was “too busy to take care 
of them” (?) as he used to express it. 
■WINTERING BEES IN A WARM ROOM. 
Rut. a number have wintered single colo¬ 
nies of bees in the living-room of a house 
where the temperature was kept between 
65 and 72, night and day. In the cases 
mentioned, the colonies were placed on a 
shelf next to a window, with the entrance 
communicating with the outside. All old 
and superannuated hees can thus escape at 
any time; and when the weather is suitable 
the bees can fly. A colony of bees was 
placed in one of the offices of the A. I. 
Root Co. and was there for at least three 
years. Some years it seemed to winter 
very nicely; but taking one year with an¬ 
other, these indoor colonies did not seem to 
get ahead like those outdoors. The warmer 
atmosphere in which the hive is placed has 
a tendency to start brood-rearing. This 
forces the bees out on unfavorable days, 
with the result that .they never return. The 
slight amount of brood hatched does not 
compensate for the number lost in this 
way; and the result is, the colony gradual¬ 
ly goes down. By the time spring comes 
on, the queen is not ready for the active 
