Second, if they are wintered indoors, in a hive full of combs, take away all you can before they are set out in the spring, even if you have to feed to prevent starvation.
Third, if you do winter indoors on a full set of combs, do not commence feeding regularly, to induce breeding, as soon as set out, though it be the 25th of April or even the 1st of May.
In the case mentioned the consequences were: In the weak colonies some of the bees died in the combs and contracted some moisture, consequently would mold. Some strong colonies would do the same, but many of the dead bees would be thrown down. The cellar had a drain 100 feet long, with a fall of 5 feet, to keep the cellar dry, and a ventilator 3 feet above the house-sill outside, at the south. The ventilator opened on warm days, consequently a draft of warm air, fire in the room above, temperature in the bee-cellar raised, cluster of bees spread, queen goes to laying, honey consumed, brood reared and old bees wearing out; all of these conditions are the requisites of good, strong, healthy colonies, and they are just as surely the forerunners of first-class cases of foul brood every time.
I know that 99 out of every 100 bee-keepers will differ with me, but go through the colonies with me 10 or 15 days after setting out on the summer stands; suppose in that time we have had 2 or 3 good flying days; the feeding induced the queen to lay more rapidly and forced the cluster to spread; the eggs hatched into larvæ; on the pleasant days the old bees flew out but forgot to fly in again, thus diminishing the cluster; then there came 2 or 3 stormy days in succession, cold and chilling; the cluster contracted as well as diminished in numbers; the minute larvæ starved and dead, and some, perhaps, that are advanced to capping; another flying day, and their numbers are more reduced. The dead bees in the combs putrefy, and you have for your pains a first-class case of foul brood in the near future. Many will shake their heads, but I saw the colonies, and in 3 years I saw the 25 and their increase decreased to 17, the 17 and their increase decreased to 9, the 9 down to 2, and the 2 went, in the spring of 1880, “where the woodbine twineth.”