. The Bee-keepers' review. Bee culture. THE BEE-KEEPERS' v3 ^ OISTURE AND VEN- TILATION IN BEE HIVES AND CEL- LARS. BY C. F. SMITH. Friend Hutchinson— I am induced, by two reasons, to comply with your request to write on the above subject. 1st. Fromthe standpoint of my exper- ience during- the past four years, I can see that the bee-l<;eeping public in gen- eral has a wrong- impression. 2nd. That, in my opinion, very little ad- vance in wintering problems has been made in the past twenty years. As there were ten or twelve years that I did not read the bee papers, it is pos- sible t
. The Bee-keepers' review. Bee culture. THE BEE-KEEPERS' v3 ^ OISTURE AND VEN- TILATION IN BEE HIVES AND CEL- LARS. BY C. F. SMITH. Friend Hutchinson— I am induced, by two reasons, to comply with your request to write on the above subject. 1st. Fromthe standpoint of my exper- ience during- the past four years, I can see that the bee-l<;eeping public in gen- eral has a wrong- impression. 2nd. That, in my opinion, very little ad- vance in wintering problems has been made in the past twenty years. As there were ten or twelve years that I did not read the bee papers, it is pos- sible that others have touched upon the points I shall make; but, judging from the "handwriting on the wall," they did not; or, if they did, they failed to make the desired impression. UPWARD VENTILATION, ABSORBENTS AND SEALED COVERS. Twenty years ago the bee-keeping public in general admitted that bees in winter required one of two things— either an absorbent, or else direct, up- ward ventilation. There were great controversies pro and con, but the pref- erence of bee-keepers generallj% favor- ed absorbents. About this time some new and improved hives were invented and placed on the market which did not readily admit of absorbents; then ' it became necessary to invent a new theory on ventilation to go with the new hives. Then it was, tliat the hermetically sealed hive idea was sprung upon the public. This falla- cious idea catne near sealing the doom of many an apiarist; among them one of the progenitors of the idea, who lost 335 colonies out of 400. Then he wrote a book and called it Success in Bee Culture, in fullfilment of a promise to "write a book upon bee-culture when the wintering problem had been ; It also came near sealing my doom, for I accepted the new idea along with the "New Hive," (which, by the way, is the best hive yet invented.) bees don't stop holes and cracks in their hives, through which THEY CAN pass. These men discovered
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookdecade1880, booksubjectbeecult, bookyear1888
