I have now given directions to avoid killing any family of bees worth saving, if we choose.
When such as need feeding have been fed, and all weak families made strong by additions, etc., but little more fall work is needed in the apiary. It is only when you have weak stocks, unfit to winter, that it is necessary to be on the lookout every warm day to prevent pillage.
There is almost as much diversity of opinion with respect to wintering bees as in the construction of hives, and about as difficult to reconcile.
One will tell you to keep them warm, another to keep them cold; to keep them in the sun, out of the sun, bury them in the ground, put them in the cellar, the chamber, wood-house, and other places, and no places at all; that is, to let them remain as they are, without any attention. Here are plans enough to drive the inexperienced into despair. Yet I have no doubt but that bees have been sometimes successfully wintered by all these contradictory methods. That some of these methods are superior to others, needs no argument to illustrate. But what method _is best_, is our province to inquire. Let us endeavor to examine the subject without prejudice to bias our judgment.
THE IDEA OF BEES NOT FREEZING HAS LED TO ERRORS IN PRACTICE.
By close observation we shall probably discover that the assertion so often repeated, that bees have never frozen except when without honey, has led to an erroneous practice.
We will first endeavor to examine the condition of a stock left to nature, without any care, and see if it affords any hints for our guidance, when to assist and protect with artificial means.
Warmth being the first requisite, a family of bees at the approach of cold weather crowd together in a globular form, into a compass corresponding to the degree of cold; when at zero it is much less than at thirty above. Those on the outside of this cluster are somewhat stiffened with cold; while those inside are as brisk and lively as in summer. In severe weather every possible space within their circle is occupied; even each cell not containing pollen or honey will hold a bee. Suppose this cluster is sufficiently compact for mutual warmth, with the mercury at 40, and a sudden change brings it down to zero, in a few hours, this body of bees, like most other things, speedily contracts by the cold. The bees on the outside, being already chilled, a portion of them that does not keep up with the shrinking mass, is left exposed at a distance from their fellows, and receive but little benefit of the warmth generated there; they part with their vitality, and are lost.