=Vexed and Perplexed.=--When I go into my bee lot and look around I am vexed over the situation and perplexed to know what to do with my hives and combs. I put into winter quarters 16 colonies (all blacks) and now have one, very weak. I have a lot of nice, well-made and painted hives on hand, and a lot of combs. As I have never handled Italian bees, and have concluded to purchase, and I hear they are larger than the blacks, will you please answer these 2 questions in the BEE JOURNAL: Are comb cells of the black bee too small for the Italians to raise brood in? Will it not cramp them in size? Will it be safe to feed the thin uncapped honey that has caused dysentery to other bees? The bees in this vicinity are all dead. Success to the BEE JOURNAL. D. S. KALLY. Mansfield, Ind. [The difference in size of cells is not perceptible. If bees are flying freely, you can feed the thin honey with impunity.--ED. =Ventilation.=--I have met 14 different persons in the last few days that had, last Nov., 168 colonies of bees altogether; now they have in the aggregate 57 living; these were mostly in frame hives, on the summer stands, and left to care for themselves. Nearly all died with plenty of honey to have carried them through. This, I think, will be about the average loss in the counties of Champaign, Piatt and Moultrie, in this State. Wm. H. Beckwith started in the winter with 18 colonies in Langstroth and box hives, with plenty of bees and honey in each hive. The hives were very poorly made, being open at the corners, with a board laid on top to keep the rain or snow from falling directly into the hive. Nearly all of them set on blocks from one to two inches from the bottom board; they were ventilated better than any bees I have seen this season; he has 16 colonies to day, alive, and apparently in good condition. Perhaps there is more in ventilation than chaff hives or cellars. Will some one please rise and explain? S. GOODRICH. Urbana, Ill., March 23, 1881. =Bees Confined 5 Months.=--Yesterday my 115 colonies of bees had their first flight since the last week in Oct., having been confined to their hives 5 months, lacking 2 or 3 days only. This is a month longer than I have ever had them confined to the hive without a flight, during the past 12 years, and to my very great satisfaction as well as astonishment, I do not find a single dead colony. Some 5 or 10 are considerably diseased, and a few are almost sure to be found queenless. I expect to lose from 5 to 15 between this and honey harvest. Bees generally have wintered very poorly in this section. From ½ to 2/3 of all the bees put in winter quarters last fall, have died. I winter entirely in chaff hives, and from what I hear I judge that that method of wintering has succeeded better than any other during this past winter. O. O. POPPLETON. Williamstown, Iowa, March 25,1881.