. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 612 THE AMERICAN BEE For the Auiericjin Bee .Journal. Wintering, the Season in England, etc. SAMUEL SIJIMINS. While there is yet time, before the bees are prepared for their long coii- Hiieiuent, allow me to suggest what appears to me to be the principal cause of the frequent heavy losses, which occur during the severe and protracted cold, to which some of your States are subject. The all important and life-giving element, "fresh air," seems to have been lost sight of, and 1 believe that hives judiciously ventilated, without direct
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 612 THE AMERICAN BEE For the Auiericjin Bee .Journal. Wintering, the Season in England, etc. SAMUEL SIJIMINS. While there is yet time, before the bees are prepared for their long coii- Hiieiuent, allow me to suggest what appears to me to be the principal cause of the frequent heavy losses, which occur during the severe and protracted cold, to which some of your States are subject. The all important and life-giving element, "fresh air," seems to have been lost sight of, and 1 believe that hives judiciously ventilated, without direct draught, will stand any weather, even should they have an excess of pollen, which some writers suppose to be tlie grand cause of wintering troubles. Dysentery rarely occurs among my bees. Our winters are never so severe but what the bees can occasionally re- new tl>e air by their usual method of fanning; but with you the case is different, and it stands to reason that when the cold is so severe that they are unable to leave the cluster for many days in succession, the atmo- sphere must become foul, and, conse- quently, the health of the bees is ma- terially affected, and then follows dys- entery and generally the loss of the colony. I do not mean to say that dysentery Is always caused by the want of gen, but that its absence is the prin- cipal source of winter mortality with colonies well stored. My idea is to give a gentle, continu- ous supply of fresh air, without per- mitting direct draught, and those in- tending to experiment in this direc- tion will, of course, adopt the means most suited to theii- own style of hive. The season with us has been generally unfavorable; the only honey-How oc- curring during the second week in August, when colonies in fair condi- tion stored more than sufficient for winter. Previous to tliis the bees ob- tained just enough to keep the queens breeding, enabling me to increase to twice the number I had at the begin- ning of the year. I
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
