But some one may say, "What possible difference can the kind of hives in which bees are kept make in the quantity of food which they will consume?" Enough, I would reply, in some single winters, to pay the difference between a good hive and a bad one! I cannot move my finger, or wink my eye-lids without some waste of muscle, however small; for it is a well-ascertained law in our animal economy, that all _muscular exertion_ is attended with a corresponding _waste_ of muscular fibre. Now this waste must be supplied by the consumption of food, and it would be as unreasonable to expect constant heat from a stove without fresh supplies of fuel, as incessant muscular activity from an insect, without a supply of food proportioned to that activity. If then we can contrive any way to keep our bees in almost perfect quiet during the Winter, we may be certain that they will need much less food than when they are constantly excited. In the cold Winter of 1851-2, I kept two swarms in a perfectly dry and dark cellar, where the temperature was remarkably uniform, seldom varying two degrees from 50° of Fahrenheit; and I found that the bees ate very little honey. The hives were of glass, and the bees, when examined from time to time, were found clustered in almost death-like repose. If these bees had been exposed in thin hives in the open air, they would, in all probability, have eaten four times as much; for whenever the sun shone upon them, or the atmosphere was unusually warm, they would have been roused to injurious activity, and the same would have been the case, when the cold was severe. Exposed to sudden changes and severe cold, they would have been in almost perpetual motion, and must have been compelled to consume a largely increased quantity of food. In this way, many colonies are annually starved to death, which if they had been better protected, would have survived to gladden their owner with an abundant harvest. This protection, as a general thing, must be given to them in the open air, for it is a very rare thing, to meet with a cellar which is dry enough to prevent the combs from moulding, and the bees from becoming diseased. Bees never, unless diseased, discharge their fæces in the hive; and the want of suitable protection, by exciting undue activity, and compelling them to eat more freely, causes their bodies to be greatly distended with accumulated fæces. On the return of warm weather, bees in this condition being often too feeble to fly, crawl from their hives, and miserably perish. I must notice another exceedingly injurious effect of insufficient protection, in causing the _moisture_ to settle upon the cold top and sides of the interior of the hive, from whence it drips upon the bees. In this way, many of their number are chilled and destroyed, and often the whole colony is infected with dysentery. Not unfrequently, large portions of the comb are covered with mould, and the whole hive is rendered very offensive.