114 



April, 1913 



American l^ee Journal 



some of that sealed honey or by add- 

 ing some thin, warm food. Warm food 

 because it will be more readily taken ; 

 thin food because in spring time the 

 bees need water to dilute the honey of 

 which they may make the larval pap. 

 Some scientists contend that this pap 

 is produced by the salivary glands of 

 the head, others that it is produced in 

 the stomach like the chyle, and is, in 

 fact. " chyle food." But neither of 

 them deny that it takes a great deal of 

 water to produce the pap. You may 

 ascertain this when you notice that the 

 strongest and best breeding colonies 

 are those that send the largest number 

 of foragers to the water-trough or the 

 nearest pond. This is why, although 

 dry sugar is usually taken slowly by 

 them, we do not consider it a very good 

 food, for it compels the bees to go re- 

 peatedly in search of water. In cool 

 or damp days of spring many bees are 

 lost in their trips after ca/d ivaUr. 



When speaking of thin food, we 

 mean food containing only 5 to 10 per- 

 cent more water than winter food, and 

 that is about two weights of sugar to 

 one of water. Very thin food is inju- 

 rious, for the bees cannot evaporate it 

 in cool weather. 



If colonies are short of stores after 

 fruit bloom, we favor rather repeated 

 feeding than lump amounts. Repeated 

 feeding will keep them active and en- 

 hance laying. Lump feeding may be 

 too copious, and if the crop comes 

 suddenly it may cause the placing of 

 some of this food in the supers. We 

 remember once giving some destitute 

 colonies, in May, combs of honey in 

 the supers, to which they added honey 

 instead of using it up, within a week, 

 because the crop began with an un- 

 expected rush. 



Much depends upon location. But if 

 you live in a country where there is a 

 very marked shortage of bloom be- 

 tween fruit bloom and clover, keep 

 your eyes open and feed if the breed- 

 ing decreases. Never feed sugar syrup, 

 if you have good honey to spare. 



When the bees carry in honey or 

 fresh food of any kind, there is an in- 

 crease in the production of pap, an in- 

 crease of attention paid to the queen 

 and a consequent greater number of 

 offerings of food to her. How much 

 influence her own disposition to lay 

 has on these attentions, no one can 

 tell. However, it must be as with the 

 hens, the natural tendency Nature has 

 given them, to begin breeding as spring 

 opens, is cultivated and increased by 

 judicious use of warmth and food ap- 

 propriately given. Judicious feeding 

 also prevents " starved brood," which 



is sometimes mistaken for foul brood. 



Mr. B. A. Aldrich, at the Iowa meet- 

 ing of the past winter, described his 

 method of stimulative feeding which 

 consists in using a large feeder with 

 only a few small holes in it through 

 which the food passes very slowly so 

 that the bees do not secure it faster 

 than it may be consumed in brood- 

 rearing. This does away with the an- 

 noyance of having to open the hives 

 often. c. p. D. 



The above had been written when 

 the following letter was received which 

 covers some of the points mentioned, 

 and illustrates the ills of oi'er-f ceding : 



In the February number of the 

 American Bee Journal, Mr. E. S. Miles 

 says that " when you have fed your col- 

 ony what you are quite sure is plenty, 

 then feed it about .5 or 10 pounds more." 



I did this very thing to some of my 

 colonies last winter, and obtained the 

 worst results from these colonies. I 

 saved the colonies all right, but the 

 ones that I fed the most stored the 

 least honey, and the ones that were fed 

 little or none at all filled their hives 

 full. 



I am not trying to argue against 

 spring feeding, but I believe you can 

 feed too much. I fed a lot of comb 

 honey that was hardly good enough for 

 table use, and the bees cleaned up nearly 

 every bit that I gave them. I believe 

 now that these bees already had enough 

 honey to have carried them through, 

 and that they simply carried this extra 

 honey down and filled the comb that 

 they had emptied during the winter, 

 and that the queen did not have suffi- 

 cient room to lay her eggs. These 

 colonies lived all summer (and are 

 good, strong colonies now, for that 

 matter), and kept the bottom stories 

 well filled with honey, but they never 

 increased. 



I examined the frames in July or 

 August, and found brood in only two 

 or three frames in each hive, and these 

 frames were more than half honey. All 

 the rest of the frames were filled with 

 honey. The bees never stored any in 

 the supers. 



At present my colonies all seem 

 strong. They have had several flights 

 this winter, and I do not expect to feed 

 them a pound unless something unusual 

 happens. 



I have been handling bees but two or 

 three years, and I should like to have 

 the Editor say whether or not it is 

 possible to feed too much. 



Shelbyville, Ky. H. .A. Wells. 



This letter is already answered by 

 the above remarks. There is a very 

 easy remedy, however, for the condi- 

 tion which Mr. Wells describes. It is 

 to remove a frame of honey and insert, 

 in the center of the over-wealthy col- 

 ony, a frame of empty, dry comb, or if 

 such is not to be had, a frame of foun- 

 dation, or even an empty frame. How- 

 ever in the last case, the bees would 

 probably build drone-comb, which 

 would be injurious, .^fter the empty 



comb has been filled with brood the 

 same operation may be repeated with 

 another frame of honey, until the col- 

 ony is sufficiently depleted of its over- 

 stock. Mr. Miles or Mr. Byer would 

 have done this without hesitancy. 

 Often an exchange between an exces- 

 sively heavy colony and a destitute one 

 will prove beneficial to both. 



In all our manipulations of the apiary 

 it is necessary to use judgment and 

 foresight. We should remember that 

 the advantage of the movable-frame 

 hive over the box-hive is in the manip- 

 ulations which it permits. 



Wiscon.sin Foul Brood Law 



A change in the Wisconsin Inspec- 

 tion law is now before the Legistature 

 of that state. We are told that it goes 

 among the representatives under the 

 name of " France Bill," so well known 

 is our good and popular friend N. E 

 France among the law makers of Wis- 

 consin. Mr. France would like to see 

 the inspection of bees placed under the 

 office of the State Entomologist. This 

 will sooner or later be the case in every 

 State, unless a State apiarist be ap- 

 pointed, as they have done in the Prov- 

 ince of Ontario. A State Entomologist 

 must necessarily employ a competent 

 apiarist to look after this branch of the 

 already numerous entomological duties. 

 The fighting of injurious insects, and 



L.\TER. — K card from INIr. France an- 

 nounces that the law has passed both 

 houses unanimously, and needs only the 

 Governor's signature to become a law. 



The Ketiriug of au Old Editor 



The Signor And. DeRauschenfels, 

 for 2.5 years editor of L'Apicoltore, the 

 oldest Italian bee journal, lately with- 

 drew from active life. He is 8-5 years 

 old. He is one of the progressive bee- 

 writers of the world. In ISKH he pub- 

 lished " L'.-\pe E La Sua Ccltivazione" 

 (The Bee and its Culture) with an "At- 

 las " of bee-culture, in which he repro- 

 duced the microscopic studies of Barbo, 

 lithographed by Clerici. He announced 

 his withdrawal to us in a private letter, 

 last December, while modestly refus- 

 ing to send us his photograph, saying 

 he had none, and claiming to be "un- 

 worthy of the honor." 



We have, however, secured the prom- 

 ise of that photograph, from an amateur 

 artist, Signor Arnaldo Cotti, who lives 

 in the same village, Noceto, near 

 Parma. This is lucky, for there is no 

 photographer in this small locality, and 

 Sig. DeRauschenfels is not in sufficient 

 health to go to Parma. 



This noted apiarist made his retir- 

 ing bow to the bee-masters of Italy in 

 the December number of L'Apicoltore, 



