898 
WINTERING OUTDOORS 
Pig. 6.—W. T. Davison’s method of packing bees in straw for outdoor wintering. 
go into a state of activity and overeat, the 
bees will become distended, and dysentery 
or purging is almost sure to follow. This 
condition occurring in midwinter or early 
spring means the death of the colony, as 
there is no cure for it but warm weather. 
WINTERING WITH LITTLE PACKING. 
The question of how to pack, and how 
much packing to give bees, will depend 
very largely upon the climate. South of 
the Ohio River, in the eastern States, thru- 
out California, southern Nevada, Arizona, 
New Mexico, and Texas it is not customary 
to give the bees any more protection than 
is afforded by a single-walled hive; but the 
apicultural experts in the Bureau of En¬ 
tomology at Washington, D. C., believe 
that some protection could be given to ad¬ 
vantage. After having traveled over a 
large portion of these States the author 
feels inclined to agree with them. Just 
how much packing to give and in what 
form, it is rather difficult to say. In locali¬ 
ties where bees can fly out almost every day 
in the year, breeding goes o» more or less, 
and very often the accession of young bees 
does not quite make up for the loss of old 
bees that go to the fields, become chilled, 
and never return. The author believes, fur¬ 
ther, that the use of protecting cases or a 
moderate amount of packing would save 
chilled brood, save stores, and prevent the 
bees from flying out during the middle 
hours of the day, only to be chilled and 
never return. Colonies without protection 
in the semi-tropical States suffer because 
the temperature goes up high during the 
middle hours of the day, and drops down to 
freezing or below during the night. Such 
a rapid change in 24 hours is very hard on 
bees. If the temperature inside the hive' 
could be equalized by packing so that the 
sunshine during the middle of the day and 
the cold of the night would not penetrate 
the walls of the hive, a more even tempera¬ 
ture within the hive would be maintained. 
It is important, in addition, that the en¬ 
trance be contracted to a space for the pas¬ 
sage of only two or three bees at a time. 
The purpose of this is primarily to keep 
the cold from entering the hive, and sec¬ 
ondarily, to prevent robbing. 
WINTERING IN DOUBLE-WALLED HIVES. 
For the northern climates that are sub¬ 
ject to zero weather at times, that have 
more or less snow and a large amount of 
frost extending perhaps two feet into the 
ground, nothing short of double-walled 
