40 . EIGHTEENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE 



Mr. Kildow. — I made two wooden troughs, put them back into the 

 orchard and I put about one-fifth honey and the other four-fifths 

 water, and let them go to it. 



The President. — How far away from your apiary? 



Mr. Kildow. — About 80 to 90 yards, probably. 



The Secretary. — Then, Mr. Kildow, do not the strong colonies 

 get more than the weak ones? 



Mr. Kildow. — They need more. 



The Secretary — Will the weak ones get their share? 



Mr. Kildow. — They get their share in proportion to their strength. 



The Secretary. — Sometimes the weak ones have not strength 

 to fly from their hives. 



Mr.. Kildow. — Well, they will die then. 



The President. — Mr. Frank Bishop, what have you to say on 

 this question? 



Mr. Bishop. — Mr. Kildow's method is as good as any. I know 

 that it is very little work and when you have colonies that are so weak 

 that they cannot get enough to do them any good, I think it would 

 be better to resort to some other method of feeding those weak fellows 

 outside of what we would use for feeding the strong or even the normal 

 colonies. I never have had much experience in this stimulating feeding, 

 because I never practiced very much of it. I have fed a few weak 

 colonies that I thought really needed stimulating more than a normal 

 colony would, in order to get them ready for the honey flow, but when 

 I did that I would feed daily through a feeder and feed a small amount 

 each day to colonies that were at all weak. That is all the experience 

 I have had in regard to that stimulating feeding. 



Mr. Tyler. — I have fed some in the spring of this feed, quite a 

 good deal of it, set it out as Mr. Kildow does, but I used to set my feed 

 soutwest from where my neighbor was located. I was out there one 

 day and after setting out the feed and watching the bees I found that 

 they were coming from the neighbor. My uncle has a little apiary 

 there and I was feeding his bees. 



Mr. Dadant. — I was looking for some such statement as that. 

 That is the trouble with feeding out of doors. We not only feed the 

 strong colonies, colonies that have plenty, but we also run the risk of 

 feeding our neighbors' bees. It is all right to be charitable, but I 

 think neighbors should be charitable to their bees and we ought to 

 be to ours. 



Strong colonies that have plenty of capped honey do not need 

 if ceding, but if you wish to increase the laying of their queen in times 

 of scarcity, just scratch some of the cappings of the sealed honey in 

 their combs and they will take it up and feed more of it to the queen 

 than they would have done otherwise and this will increase her laying. 

 Whenever the bees handle honey they feed the queen more. That 

 is why, when the bees make honey in the field, the queen is more apt 

 to increase her laying, for if bees have plenty of food the queen will 

 get more and therefore she will lay more. Weak colonies I think ought 

 to be fed warm food. Not long ago we gave in the Bee Journal a very 

 interesting thing, perhaps some of you have not read it. M. B. 

 Bonnier, the same man who wrote on the production of honey dew, 



