No. 6. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 403 



by furiiisliiiig a supply of water near by in some sheltered spot. One 

 good way is to liiruish water in the same way that syrup is fed. (^See 

 Crock-and-plale feeder, page 80). Another way is to take a large 

 crock and fill it nearly full with sticks of firewood set endwise 

 (all the better if the wood is rotten), and then fill up with water. If 

 you simply give them a crock of water, they will drown in it. 



If you get them started to getting water at a particular place in the 

 spring, they will continue to go there all through the season, unless 

 you let the water dry up for a day or so. One advantage of having 

 a regular watering place for the bee® is that you thereby avoid the 

 annoyance of having them gather toward the end of summer at the 

 pump or at the watering trough. Horses dislike bees very much 

 at their watering troughs, and are sometimes stung by the drowning 

 bees. 



ENEMIES OF BEES. 



Aside from the ignorant and careless bee-keeper, no enemy of the 

 bees has been considered worse than the bee-moth or wax-worm. 

 Since the introduction of the Italian bee, however, this enemy is 

 little to be dreaded so long as combs are in the care of the bees, pro- 

 vided the bees are as much as half Italian blood. Indeed, even 

 with black bees there is no occasion for anxiety if the colonies are 

 strong. If a colony is so weak that it cannot cover more than one-half 

 its combs, then the moth has a fair chance to lay its eggs without 

 hindrance in the unoccupied combs, and the heat from the bees 

 is just the thing for the comfortable growth of the little worms 

 that hatch from the eggs. If the bees are black it may not be long 

 until all the unoccupied combs are consumed, leaving in their place 

 a lot of webs, cocoons, and fat worms an inch or so long. If, how- 

 ever, the bees are Italian, they will scout around over the unoccu- 

 pied comb®, and pick off the little worms before they become of suf- 

 ficient size to do any serious damage. 



Very often the worms have more blame laid to their door than 

 fairly belongs to them. A man says: ''I had a rousing good colony 

 that sent out three swarms, and the first thing I knew the worms got 

 at it, killed the bees and finished up the whole business. That's 

 the most discouraging thing about bees; the worms kill so many of 

 them every year." And he thinks he is telling the truth when he 

 says the worms or the moth killed his strong colony; the truth being, 

 however, that it was greatly weakened by sending out three swarms, 

 and failing to rear a laying queen, the discouraged bees died off, and 

 left the worms in full possession of the combs. It would be just as 

 reasonable for him to say that maggots had killed a horse if he should 

 find one filled with them a few weeks after it had been shot. 



As prevention is better than cure, it will be easy to understand 



