INDOOR WINTERING.
Dry cellars or special repositories are utilized in those portions of the country where the cold of winter is extreme and likely to be somewhat continuous. Economy of food is one of the chief advantages, but two-thirds as much, or about 20 to 25 pounds per hive, are needed to bring a colony through if conditions are favorable. The colonies, prepared as regards bees, queens, character of stores, etc., the same as for outdoor wintering, are carried into the cellar or repository just before the first snows come or severe freezing occurs. Caps are removed or lifted up and cushions or mats laid on the frames. Light is excluded and all other disturbing influences in so far as possible, the effort being made to keep the temperature at about 42° F. during the earlier part of the winter. Later, especially after brood-rearing may have been begun, a somewhat higher degree is admissible—45° to 46°, some even allowing it to go up to 50°. No definite rule can be given, however, since much depends upon the humidity of the air, etc. As long as the bees remain quiet the temperature is not too high and is preferably to be maintained. Should they become exceedingly restless, and the opportunity occur during a winter thaw to give them a cleansing flight, it will be advisable to return them for a few hours or a day or two to their summer stands, and when they have flown and quieted down, replace them in the cellar or repository. In the spring there should not be too great eagerness to get them out of the cellar, provided they are not restless. Their confinement indoors makes them somewhat sensitive to the outside cold, and due caution should be observed, else the ranks of the workers will become greatly decimated before young ones appear to take their places.
The same questions regarding ventilation of hives indoors that puzzle many in the case of those left on their summer stands have been discussed over and over. All that is necessary, however, is to consider the same points, the question being less complicated, though, by reason of the greater uniformity between the temperature surrounding the cluster of bees and that outside the hive when the latter is in a suitable winter repository. Some have reported success in wintering in damp cellars, yet it is probable that such success was purely accidental, or rather occurred in spite of the dampness of the repository, the other conditions very likely having all been favorable, especially as regards ventilation of the cellar, and the important points of having good stores and an even temperature, which should be several degrees higher than is required in a dry cellar. Wintering in a damp repository is, however, attended in general with such risks that it should by all means be avoided, and the bees, even in a severe climate, intrusted preferably to their summer stands, if well prepared as regards their stores and populousness.
CHAPTER XII.
DISEASES AND ENEMIES OF BEES.
DIARRHEA AND DYSENTERY.
In the chapter on wintering bees allusion has been made to certain conditions which bring about diarrhea in bees. Not only will soured or fermented honey produce this disease, but thin honey also, by requiring too great exertion on the part of the bees to get rid of the surplus moisture taken into their bodies, may indirectly cause the disease. Repeated complaints have been made by those located near cider mills that the apple juice collected by their bees was the cause of diarrhea and dysentery. Aphidid secretions sometimes have the same effect. Prolonged and intense cold in the interior of the hive, especially if the stores are not of the best quality, causes distention and resulting weakness and soiling of the hive and combs. Dampness and chilling of individual bees frequently cause it. The effort some make to avoid the dampness often results in the chilling, for the cover is removed, and also some portion of the packing or the quilt or honey board to let the air pass through to dry the interior. The true remedy is a cleansing flight and warmth in the hive. Should the weather not be favorable for this out of doors, the hive may be brought into a warm room and a cage of wire cloth 2 or 3 feet square placed over the entrance. When thoroughly warmed up the bees will fly in this and find their way back into the hive. It is best to leave them in the warm room two or three days, lowering the temperature gradually before returning the hive to its outside stand.
FOUL BROOD.
This disease, being highly contagious, is dreaded most of all by the bee keeper. It is due to the presence of minute vegetable organisms in the body of the bee, the larva, or the egg, which prey upon its tissues. These, as Prof. Frank Cheshire has shown, are bacilli, which, multiplying with marvelous rapidity by division and also by spores, are carried from hive to hive, until from a single infection the whole apiary is soon ruined. The particular bacillus which is commonly known as foul brood Professor Cheshire has described as Bacillus alvei, or hive bacillus, as it affects not only the brood but also the adult bees. (See Pl. XI.) The first symptoms noticeable in the hive are its lack of energy, then dead larvæ turned black in the cells, and finally sunken caps, some of them perforated slightly over larvæ and pupæ.
| Bul. 1, new series, Div. of Entomology, U. S. Dept. of Agriculture. | Plate XI. | ||||||||||||||||
Bacillus Alvei (Cheshire). [Drawn from nature by Frank R. Cheshire for Jour. R. Micr. Soc.,
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