ources to show that bees will freeze to death, the
above would seem to furnish it. It is said, "that in Poland bees are
wintered in a semi-torpid state, in consequence of the extreme cold."
We must either doubt the correctness of this relation, or suppose the
bee of that country a different insect from ours--a kind of semi-wasp,
that will live through the winter, and eat little or nothing. The
reader can have no difficulty in deciding which is the most probable,
whether _bees are bees_ throughout the world, endowed with the same
faculties and instincts, or that the facts as they are, are not
precisely given, especially when we see what our own apiarians tell us
about their never freezing.

Here I might use strong language in contradiction; but as I am aware
that such a course is not always the most convincing, I prefer the test
of close observation. If bees will freeze, it is important to know it,
and in what circumstances.

HOW A SMALL FAMILY MAY ALL FREEZE.

Suppose a quart of bees were put in a box or hive where all the cells
were filled and lengthened out with honey; the spaces between the combs
would be about one-fourth of an inch--only room for one thickness of
bees to spread through. The combs would perhaps be one and a half or
two inches thick. All the warmth that could be generated then, would be
by one course or layer of bees, an inch and a half apart. Although
every bee would have food in abundance without changing its position,
the first turn of severe weather would probably destroy the whole.
This, it may be said, "is an unnatural situation." I will admit that it
is; the case was only supposed for illustration. I know that their
winter quarters are among the brood combs, where the hatching of the
brood leaves most of the cells empty; and the space between the combs
is half an inch; a wise and beautiful arrangement; as ten times the
number of bees can pack themselves within a circle of six inches, as
can in the other case; and in consequence the same number of bees can
secure much more animal heat, and endure the cold much better; but a
_small_ family, even here, will often be found frozen, as well as
starving.

FROST AND ICE SOMETIMES SMOTHER BEES.

Besides freezing, there are other facts to be observed in stocks which
stand in the cold. If we examine the interior of a hive containing a
medium-sized swarm, on the first severely cold morning, except in the
immediate vicinity of the bees, we shall