266 N. H. STATE AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY. 



ment by procuring a pound of Cubalioncy, to wMcli I added 

 two pounds of brown sugar and three pounds of water, ma- 

 king six pounds of the composition. The water was scald- 

 ing hot. When cool, I poured about two thirds of it into 

 a feeder, and placed it in a hive containing a late swarm of 

 bees with a considerable quantity of dry comb, and not a 

 particle of honey to be seen. In about an hour from the 

 time I placed the feeder in the hive, every particle of the 

 feed had disappeared, and the cells of the comb were equal- 

 ly about half-filled with the composition, of a reddish color, 

 precisely the same in appearance as it was before I gave it 

 to the bees. I then opened the hive and broke out a piece 

 of this comb containing the feed. As soon as I could clear 

 the bees from it, I bit off a mouthful of the comb and its 

 contents. The sensation produced by breaking the comb 

 in the mouth, and the flavor of the wax of which the comb 

 was made, seemed to indicate a slight change in the feed. 

 I then pressed some of it info a spoon, and tasted again. 

 There was not the slightest change in the flavor, and I would 

 have defied any man to have told that which had been in 

 the bees from that which the bees had not seen. If any 

 doubt this statement, let them try the experiment themselves. 

 I then gave the remainder to the same swarm, which readily 

 deposited it in the comb, but did not cap or seal it over as 

 bees do good honey from the flowers. I undertook to win- 

 ter this swarm with the rest of my bees, but it died about the 

 middle of the winter with the dysentery, besmearing the in 

 side of the hive and combs from top to bottom, still leaving 

 about half of this miserable stufl" in the comb. This exper- 

 iment satisfied me as to the power of bees in changing brown 

 sugar, molasses, and the like, into good honey. Some with 

 whom I am accquaintcd, after feeding barrels of this good- 

 for-nothing stufl", but to make vinegar of, to a valuable stock 

 of bees, lost them all, without ever rcceivinga dollar towards 

 paying for this feed. 



Bees do not change their honey one particle from the 



