It is settled beyond a doubt in my own mind, by the experience of others as related in the Bee Journal, and by my own experience for several years in the apiary, that bees to winter well, must have sufficient ventilation to carry off the excessive moisture which accumulates in well stocked hives. This moisture arises partly from the exhalations from the bodies of the bees, but mostly, I think, from the surrounding atmosphere, which constantly holds in suspense a greater or less amount of moisture, according as its temperature is higher or lower. The warm atmosphere of the hive is capable of holding a considerable quantity, until it is condensed by coming in contact with the cold walls of the hive, at some distance from the cluster of bees. There it condenses, first into minute drops of moisture, and afterwards, if the cold increases, into frost. The constant accumulation of the quantity, by repeated thawing and freezing in a hive that has no efficient means of ventilation, gradually encroaches on the space occupied by the bees, finally reaching those on the outside of the cluster. These grow benumbed, cease to eat, lose their vitality, grow cold, the frost forms on their bodies, and they die where they stand. The frost continues to penetrate the cluster, if the cold weather is prolonged, until finally the last bee dies covered with frost. The warm days of spring then melt this frost, and on examination, the whole mass of bees are found dead and as wet as if just dipped from a basin of water. I found one hive in that condition last spring. The entrance to this hive was left open, but the honey-board was left on tight, without any upward ventilation, as an experiment. All my other colonies wintered well on their summer stands, having their entrances open three or four inches wide, and the front and rear openings in the honey-boards (half an inch wide, and extending the whole length of the hive) uncovered, but the middle opening closed.
For the coming winter I have adopted Mr. Langstroth’s plan with some modifications. I shall omit the outside covering of the hive, believing that it is better to have the hive of a single thickness of board, say seven-eighths of an inch, in order that the heat of the sun may easily penetrate it, and warm up the hive almost daily, thus giving the bees an opportunity to bring to the central part of the hive fresh supplies of food from the outer combs. This plan may lead to a somewhat greater consumption of honey; but if a swarm of bees will give its owner from fifty to one hundred pounds of surplus honey in a season, as mine have done the past summer, he ought to be entirely willing to have them eat all they need during the winter. At all events, one of two things must be done, to winter bees successfully, in addition to their having a supply of food and thorough ventilation—they must either be kept in a repository where frost cannot enter, as a cellar, trench, ice-house, or the like; or they must be put where the sun can warm them up occasionally.
I have removed all the honey-boards, placed two one-half or three-quarter inch strips across the frames, and covered the whole top of the frames with any old woollen garments that could be found about the house.[3] These need no cutting or fitting. Pack them in as you would pack a trunk, (the roof or cover of my top box is movable, and I like it much better than the old plan of having it nailed on,) two, three, or half a dozen thicknesses will make no difference. The moisture will pass through as readily as the insensible perspiration of our bodies will pass through our bed covering. The hives will remain dry and the bees warm. I have no fear of losing a single swarm the coming winter, although several new ones which I bought are quite weak, owing to the sudden close of the honey harvest a month earlier than last year, in consequence of the drought.
R. Bickford.
Seneca Falls, N. Y., Oct., 1868.
[For the American Bee Journal.]
Upward Ventilation.
Mr. Editor:—I once found a bee-tree, with an excellent swarm in it. I cut it down Gallup-fashion, and moved it home, in the month of February. The entrance was a hole, about three inches in diameter, just at the top of the cavity. The tree was a green butternut. I sawed it off, short enough to handle easy, and set it up in the yard. The combs were bright and clean, and there were not over a dozen dead bees in it when found. It swarmed twice in June following, and next winter I stopped up the entrance at the top, and made another within six inches of the bottom, by boring a two-inch hole through the side. All this time I kept the top closed tight. The following winter I came near losing them with dampness and dysentery. Next winter, I closed up the auger hole, and opened the top entrance again. They wintered as nice as a pin—no dampness or dysentery. In April I thought I could still better their condition, by making the entrance smaller, and reduced the entrance to one inch in diameter. Within six days after, I came near losing them with dampness and mould. Experimenting still further, I noticed that the fanners or ventilating bees would, in hot weather, be arranged in this manner—one set at the lower edge of the entrance, with their heads outward; the other set at the top of the entrance, facing inward, driving out the hot air. I then reduced the size of the entrance still more, and found that in a very short time nearly the entire swarm would issue and cluster on the outside of the log or gum. Enlarging the hole to three inches again, the bees would soon return inside and resume work. I kept that log hive four years, and then sold it to a neighbor. Whenever I wintered it with the natural entrance open, there was no dysentery and no unnatural distention of the abdomen; and on their first flight in the spring, they would not even speck the snow.
In wintering bees in the Wellhuysen hive, made of willows and plastered with cow manure, they would never have the dysentery—not the least sign of it. The combs were always bright and clean, and the bees always in as good condition as they were in midsummer. I have wintered bees in Canada, in the old-fashioned straw hive, with the entrance, summer and winter, a two-inch hole in the centre at top; and they always wintered well, without the least sign of dysentery, even when they would not leave the hive from the 10th of October to the 1st of May—nearly eight months. In that climate they are nearly always confined from the 1st of November to the 10th or 20th of April, or about five months. When I lived there, there was scarcely ever any honey stored after the 15th of August, yet bee-keeping pays in that climate. To encourage our northern bee-keepers, I will say that, according to my experience, there and in the West, I think the flowers secrete more honey, in the same length of time, there than here. Our atmosphere is rather dry, while theirs is moist and humid—just right for the secretion of honey.