WINTERING OUTDOORS 
913 
Fig. 7.—The interior of apiary shown in Fig. 6. It is always desirable to have trees inside of an in¬ 
closure like this. In the first place, they furnish shade in the summer; and in the second place they les¬ 
sen the force of the air currents that strike the side of the fence. The hoards are separated slightly to 
allow the wind to filter thru very slowly, thus preventing a blast from glancing upward and then downward. 
If one doubts that bees try to have a 
winter nest, let him break into several clus- 
Fjg. 8 — Showing details of construction of an ar¬ 
tificial windbreak. It will be seen that the wind¬ 
break is made up of panels, the boards of which 
are placed about an inch apart, each panel being 
held in place by means of braces on the outside 
and inside. The arrangement makes it possible to 
move the windbreak as well as the apiary itself. 
The panel is separated, the braces loosened, when 
the whole is laid on a truck. 
ters of bees (if he wishes to take a chance) 
when the temperature is 5 degrees above 
zero. The author has done this repeatedly. 
If the arrangement of combs has not been 
disturbed in the fall, one will probably find 
the bees tightly jammed into the cells. And, 
again, he will often discover, as he goes over 
his colonies in the late winter or early 
spring, that some of them have actually 
starved to death. In all such cases he will 
see dead bees tightly packed in the cells of 
the winter nest, and a solid mass of bees 
filling the several spaces betweeen the 
combs. Starvation is often due to the fact 
that cold weather has continued so long 
without a let-up that the bees are left high 
and dry, so to speak, in the center of the 
winter nest. They actually starve, not¬ 
withstanding sealed honey is within two 
inches of the cluster. The long-continued 
cold has given them no opportunity to 
warm up and shift the cluster over in con¬ 
tact with the sealed honey. The author has 
seen this condition almost every winter in 
his yard. 
Still again, the author has often found 
dead colonies where some of the newer men 
in the beeyard had disturbed the combs, 
putting a solid comb of honey down thru 
the center of the winter nest. This made 
