THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



247 



Ernest Root experimented quite exten- 

 sively along- this line, and published 

 in Gleanings the result of this experi- 

 menting, and, as the time is now here 

 when robbers are likcl^' to become 

 troublesome if lives are opened, I can 

 do no belter than to copj' the article 

 entire. M.. Rout said : — 



We have overcome to a great extent 

 the ditticulty of wed ring out bees ex- 

 perienced with the outdoor feeding as 

 mentioned on p 906 of our last issue. 

 We use 60 lb cans with small holes 

 punched in the top as before. These 

 are iiuw filled with syrup of the con- 

 sistency of two parts of water to one of 

 sugar. The wenker syrup has less of 

 a teniiency to make the bees scramble 

 against each other. Then, to mitigate 

 further the damage to the bees by 

 reason of their struggling againsi. each 

 other, the 60-lb. cans are elevated 

 some ten feet above the ground. The 

 wire bail or handle that is in the top 

 is unsoldered. The can is then turned 

 upside down, and the handle is sol- 

 dered to the bottom. The other end of 

 the can is perforated with small holes, 

 as before explained. A rope is passed 

 over a limb of a tree, 12 feet or more 

 above the ground. "When the can is 

 filled with the two-to-one syrup, the 

 rope is tied to the bail (now on the bot- 

 tom of the can-, when the can is hauled 

 up to the height oi about 10 feet. It 

 mil 3' take several hours for the bees to 

 find it; but when they do they will be- 

 gin in earnest. The bees will form in 

 bunches at the perforations, and drop 

 down; but instead of dropping with a 

 thud or a jar to the ground or in the 

 grass, sustaining more or less of a 

 shock, and wearing out their wings in 

 the scramble to take wing in the grass, 

 they catch wing before the}' actuall}' 

 strike the groimd, and fly up again. 

 They no more than get a little sip of 

 syrup than down they go again, catch 

 wing, fly up, take a sip and down 

 again, and so on. The under side of 

 the tin is so smooth that there is noth- 

 ing for the bees to cling to, and they 

 can not do very much scrambling. 

 But just the minute two or three get to 

 Uig^MPg at the same 1 ole down the}' go. 

 The result is, we have produced almost 

 all the conditions of an artificial honey- 

 flow. It takes the bees so long to get a 

 load of syrup that the}' fly back and 

 forth to the hives quietly, and without 

 excitement. The 60 lb. cans of dilute 

 syrup will keep a yard of some 300 col 



onies during an absolute dearth of 

 honey (juiot for a couple of days so 

 that the hive.s can be opened indiscrim- 

 inately, and combs exposed without 

 any robbing. It begins to develop 

 now that the bees that do most of the 

 robbing represent but a very small 

 portion of the whole yard. It is these 

 that we keep busy by outdoor feeding. 

 As they can not do any scrambling to 

 any extent there is not the same wear 

 and tear that we experienced in our 

 early experiments. We feed up for 

 winter all of our 300 colonies at the 

 home yard by this outdoor feeding. 

 WMiat is more, this syrup is ripened in 

 nature's way, and therefore must 

 make .an ideal winter food. 



I am becoming more and more con- 

 vinced that there is more to this out- 

 door feeding than we formerly sup- 

 posed. Very often extracting has to 

 be deferred until after the honey-flow, 

 or during an absolute dearth of honey. 

 It is tlien that robbing will go on at a 

 furious rate; for it is simply impos- 

 sible, in opening the hives, shaking 

 and brushing the combs, to jirevent 

 robbers from getting a sip of honey 

 now and then — just enough to puc the 

 whole apiary in an uproar. Although 

 I have not tried it, I feel confident that 

 this robbing nuisance can be entirely 

 overcome. Take ordinary cheap honey 

 and dilute it considerably with water. 

 Put it into two square cans prepared 

 in the way I have described, two days 

 before extracting is to be done. I re- 

 conunend in this case the use of Jwucy 

 rather than syrup, so if some of the fed 

 product goes into the combs that are 

 extracted it will do no harm, because 

 it will be honey just the same. In the 

 twodays intervening the bees will have 

 foucd the feeders and will get nicely 

 started. Probably the two cans of 

 feed will last them for the two days. 

 Two cans more, at least, will enable 

 the apiarist to extract all of his honey; 

 for the would-be robbers have become 

 accustomed to the feeder; and if some 

 few bees should steal a little honey 

 from the combs it will not cause a 

 furore, because other bees will natur- 

 ally suppose it comes from the feeders. 

 The net result of this is, that lOO or 

 150 lbs. of honey borrowed from the 

 bees enables one to take from them sev- 

 eral tons of e\tra.3ted honey in a 

 dearth. 



x\ few days ago at niie of our out- 

 yards the boys attempted to do a 

 little in-hive feeding. It was not long 

 before the apiary was in an uproar. 



