I24 THE HUMBLE-BEE VII 
a state of suspended animation, until there comes a 
fine morning with a rising temperature, when they 
wake up and resume work with undiminished energy. 
But if starvation is long continued the comb grows 
mouldy and bees and brood die. 
Experiments with humble-bees in previous years 
had elicited the interesting fact that feeding them 
tends to make them lazy, although feeding honey- 
bees has no such effect. The reason may perhaps 
be that the humble-bee worker, being less differenti- 
ated from the queen than the honey-bee worker, 
follows to some extent her mother’s instinct of 
ceasing to work as soon as she finds food provided. 
To prevent my humble-bees from becoming lazy I 
never commenced to feed a colony until it became 
quite necessary, and then I fed it only in the evening 
when the day’s work was done, except in bad cases, 
which were fed also in the morning. In continu- 
ously unfavourable weather I found that the colonies 
that were well and regularly fed always did better 
than those that were fed only occasionally. 
I find two parts of honey mixed with one of 
water makes a suitable food—or rather drink—for 
humble-bees. But if this mixture is left unconsumed 
from day to day it soon sours, and I usually add to 
it some of the syrup I make for my honey-bees, 
because this contains a little naphthol-beta, a germi- 
cidal drug which prevents fermentation. 
The food is injected into the cells by means of a 
bulb syringe such as is used for filling fountain pens, 
procurable from any stationer for 2d. For occasional 
