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ination of practical, common sense bee-keepers, who have had the largest experience in the management of bees, and are most conversant with the evils of the present system; and who are therefore best fitted to apply them to an invention, which, if I may be pardoned for using the enthusiastic language of an experienced Apiarian on examining its practical workings, "introduces, not simply an _improvement_, but a _revolution_ in bee-keeping." FOOTNOTES: [12] A writer in the New England Farmer for March, 1853, estimates that the mild winter has been worth in the saving of fodder to the farmers of New Hampshire alone, two and a half millions of dollars! By suitable arrangements, bees even in the very coldest climates can have all the advantages of a mild winter. CHAPTER VIII. PROTECTION AGAINST EXTREMES OF HEAT AND COLD, SUDDEN AND SEVERE CHANGES OF TEMPERATURE, AND DAMPNESS IN THE HIVES. I specially invite a careful perusal of this chapter, as the subject, though of the very first importance in the management of bees, is one to which but little attention has been given by the majority of cultivators. In our climate of great and sudden extremes, many colonies are annually injured or destroyed by undue exposure to heat or cold. In Summer, thin hives are often exposed to the direct heat of the sun, so that the combs melt, and the bees are drowned in their own sweets. Even if they escape utter ruin, they cannot work to advantage in the almost suffocating heat of their hives. But in those places where the Winters are both long and severe, it is much more difficult to protect the bees from the cold than from the heat. Bees are not, as some suppose, in a _dormant_, or _torpid_ condition in Winter. It must be remembered that they were intended to live in colonies, in Winter, as well as Summer. The wasp, hornet, and other insects which do not live in families in the Winter, lay up no stores for cold weather, and are so organized as to be able to endure in a torpid state, a very low temperature; so low that it would be certain death to a honey-bee, which when frozen, is as surely killed as a frozen man. As soon as the temperature of the hives falls too low for their comfort, the bees gather themselves into a more compact body, to preserve to the utmost, their animal heat; and if the cold becomes so great that this will not suffice, they keep up an incessant, tremulous motion, accompanied by a loud humming n
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