28. In the previous chapter we have attempted to show you the great value of correctly managing bees in the late summer in order that the balance of the work you do may not fail to bring your bees through winter and spring. Unless you have requeened where necessary, united weak colonies, removed supers, and insured an adequate amount of honey in the hives, the best possible care you may give your bees through the winter and in spring, will fail. There is no more important season in your beekeeping year, than the late summer, and there are no efforts you can make at any time of the year that will do more to insure a crop of honey the following spring.

29. Having gotten the bees through the fall with all colonies headed by young vigorous queens, full of young vigorous bees, and with plenty of stores, they will be in the ideal condition for wintering and springing. As Dr. C. C. Miller used to say, you will then have "strong colonies of strong bees," Your next steps are entirely for the conservation of the strength of these bees. Success in wintering bees outdoors or indoors depends entirely upon the following correct methods for your locality, which will prevent the bees from wasting their strength and energy unnecessarily.

30. Perhaps you have wondered why this chapter starts with the figure "57." It will pay you to remember that figure, even if you have to think of Heinz's pickles to do it. Fifty-seven degrees F. is the temperature in the beehive that we have come to call the critical temperature. This is the temperature below which the bees immediately begin to form a cluster, in order to create and conserve their heat and prevent themselves from perishing. This important fact was determined by Dr. E. F. Phillips and Mr. G. S. Demuth by many careful experiments conducted in the U. S. Bee Culture Laboratory. Therefore the ideal temperature for the wintering of bees would be just a few degrees below 57° F. to keep them quietly in cluster and consuming a minimum amount of honey and moving about as little as possible. You will readily see that this is of particular importance, whether bees are wintered indoors or outdoors. Our aim must be to put the bees into such a condition that they will be kept as nearly at this temperature in their hives as possible when temperatures outside the hives are lower than 57° F.

31. Just as soon as the temperature where the bees are falls to that point and continues to drop, the bees, under normal conditions, stop flying and gather into the hive. As the temperature continues to drop, they gradually form a more compact cluster, until, if you could look into the hive, you would find them packed more tightly together than when they hang on a limb in the form of a swarm in summer. If you could peek inside of the cluster of bees hanging body to body, heads in, you would find that the inside of the cluster is not so compact, and that in there the bees are consuming honey and moving about with great rapidity as the temperature lowers. Bees create heat by the consumption of honey and their own activity. The compact outside cluster keeps that heat from escaping too fast and enables the bees on the inside to create this heat, in order to keep the whole colony alive. We can think of no more common comparison to create heat, than to make you think of men you have seen in cold weather riding on a wagon swinging their arms and slapping their hands together in order to keep warm. That is what the bees do, but of course they do it in a different way, and in addition, they sip honey which gives them their energy to produce heat. When the bees on the outside of this cluster become chilly they move toward the inside, and the bees from the inside move out to take their place, so that no bee is long exposed to the extreme cold of the outside of the cluster.

32. We have gone quite into detail on this point, in order that you may understand fully just what you are trying to do in preparing your bees to go through the long confinement of cold winter months. It has been proven by exhaustive tests made by the U. S. Bee Culture Laboratory that even in very cold weather a full swarm of bees consumes a very small quantity of honey for food alone when they are at the right temperature. When a colony of bees may go into winter quarters with 50 or more pounds of honey in the hive and emerges in spring with only 8 or 10 pounds of honey in the hive, it means that they have had to consume probably 90 per cent of that honey to create heat. If that same colony of bees had been amply protected from wind, and low temperature, the amount of honey they would have had to consume would have been very small. A much larger proportion of honey would have been left for the feeding of baby bees and the rapid building up of the colony in spring. In other words, the carelessness of the beekeeper in not providing protection, forces the bees to use this honey as fuel. They may come through winter so weakened by this excess heat production, and with so scanty stores, that only under ideal conditions can they live to assist the queen in repopulat-ing their colony and not die out entirely in the spring.

33. You will note that we form winter protection into two phases: Protection against mere low temperatures, and against the rapid reduction of temperatures by wind. These two points are the ones necessary to consider, if the bees are amply protected against being disturbed during the winter, such as by mice or cattle, or, if wintered indoors, by the jarring of the house the slamming of doors, too rapid ventilation, or too much light.