Do you say you have no duties that you are aware of, left unperformed? just as I did a very few days ago? Go read your Bible, read the commandments and see. When you have tried to live up to these, when you have tried to love your neighbor as yourself, and find you cannot do it alone, admit your helplessness and call on your Heavenly Father for aid, but first be sure you can freely give up all or everything in this world for His sake, and forgive all your fellow beings, as you hope to be forgiven. With a sincere prayer that God will enable these few words to reach you just as they were intended, I still remain more than ever your old friend A. I. Root.
Feb. 12th—Reports come in from all sides in regard to the extreme severity of the weather, and brood rearing in the forcing house is again suspended on account of the thick coat of ice that covers the sash and prevents even the noonday sun from penetrating and warming it up. Instead of feeling like being dissatisfied with such weather ought we not rather to take it as a lesson that our climate is uncertain, and that we should in building our wintering houses, cellars etc., make proper calculation for such extremes.
Feb. 15th—Still zero weather. The forcing house is so completely covered with ice that even the noonday sun scarcely has an effect on it. In Jan. Am. Agriculturist, Mr. Quinby describes the behavior of bees in cold weather, and also reiterates the statement made last season that the solid portion of the honey they eat during winter is evacuated in a dry state, and may be found on the bottom board of the hive, when the bees are in health. As soon as the paper was received we commenced some experiments to determine (as we supposed) the truth of the matter. We soon decided that Quinby was utterly wrong in both, and prepared to write a severe criticism. We are sincerely glad we did not for the spirit that was then prompting, was more a disposition to show that Mr. Q. was in error, than to get at the truth whereever it might lie. What we did was to raise a hive up from the bottom board, remove cover and quilt and subject them to severe cold weather. Although the colony (nucleus rather) contained not more than a quart of bees, they seemed to bear this without detriment. A sheet of white paper was placed under the cluster, and after a few hours the brown particles that had accumulated were examined. We thought then there was nothing there but bits of comb, propolis etc., but a more candid examination since has convinced us that, in some hives at least, the bees do void their excrement in a dry state, and perhaps they always do in perfect health. The second point was to see how the bees behaved when it was cold; strange to tell they did not behave at all. They were simply, perfectly still, “dead as door nails,” as Gallup used to say. We approached on tip-toe, and examined them by day light, and by lamp light, but it was all the same. We fixed our eye on a single bee, and watched it until our teeth chattered, but it seemed perfectly comfortable on the outside of the cluster. When the temperature became lower, quite a hum came apparently from the center of the cluster, but we could see no movement that should produce this; the bees that were visible, did not move their wings, and did not change places. Now then, when do these bees get food, and if they change about, why could we have not seen just one in the act of so doing? We confess we do not know, will some one else help? During the experiment once or twice, a bee would crawl out of the cluster and fly off in the cold and fall down and die. We then took a distant position, and saw the same phenomena, and from the number of bees found scattered about, we think it occurs about the same whether they be disturbed or not. A bee that is sick crawls out of the cluster, and out of the hive if he can, and dies. As they die thus, most in the forcing house, we may infer that brood rearing aggravates the trouble, or what is more probable to us is, that sudden and wide changes of temperature, such as we always have in the spring are severe on bees as well as on vegetation. The forcing house varies from 40 to 70°, now, almost daily. If this be true, our bees had better be kept in doors until April, or even later, if we can manage to do so; and those using the cold frames, should keep them covered and dark, except at intervals, until the days get pretty warm. All colonies have a pretty fair patch of brood, in the forcing house, it is true, but the old ones are dying off so fast, we fear we are gaining little.
Feb. 16th—Found Queen in lamp nursery dead on bottom. The bees looked bright and all right, and she looked natural, except that her body was somewhat distended. Our utter helplessness, in the matter is illustrated in the following:
During the last three winters, I have suffered heavy losses, and the matter has been a great puzzle to me. My reports of the last three seasons would have been much better, had my bees wintered well. I have for the last six winters kept my bees in an exceeding dry cellar, with an average temperature for the whole time of about 37°. For three winters they did well, then came disaster. To my mind, none of the causes and methods or theories advocated cover the whole ground or seem absolute remedies for this fatality in wintering. I firmly believe that it was an epidemic (or perhaps more properly an “apidemic”) sent by Providence for purposes His own. The most curious part in my experience is that stocks so nearly alike that I could detect no slight difference in quality, were affected so differently—one dying or becoming very weak while the other wintered in fine condition.
J. H. Nellis, Canajoharie, N. Y. Feb. 10th, ’75.
REPORT FROM L. C. ROOT.
