166 



American Hee Journal 



"Stocks, see colonies." Now none of 

 the American writers use the word 

 "stock" in that sense. Neither in the 

 Century Dictionary, nor in Webster's 

 International, can it be found as mean- 

 ing " a hive of bees," although the Cen- 

 tury gives some 3!l definitions of the 

 word "stock." To the Americans, the 

 word "stock," when speaking of bee?, 

 means " race, lineage," as " my stock of 

 Italian bees," " the stock of bees which 

 lam breeding." " Colony " means the 

 entire hive of bees. "Swarm "means 

 the bees, without combs or hive. A 

 swarm is a " swarm " until it has ac- 

 cepted the hive in which it has been 

 put and has commenced to build comb 

 and to breed, when it becomes a " col- 

 ony." Yet it would not always be easy 

 to say just when a swarm ceases to be 

 a swarm and becomes a colony. 



Mr. Bullamore's mention of "ruskie" 

 shows the alliance of the languages of 

 Europe. Ruskie and the modern 

 French "ruche" have the same origin. 

 The French Larousse dictionary gives 

 the etymology of "ruche" as from 

 "rusk," a bark receptacle. " Rusque " 

 is still used in Languedoc to mean a 

 bee-hive. — Editor.] 



Soft Sugar— Something About 

 Its Use as Bee-Food 



BY .\RTHUR C. MILLER. 



OH, SUGAR! When Noah went 

 into the Ark, he is reported to 

 have taken a pair of each kind of 

 animals with him, but I suspect 

 he had to take/Zn-ee bees, a queen, 

 a drone and a worker, and also sugar 

 to feed them. Surely he used sugar for 

 the purpose. He couldn't have kept 

 honey good during that damp spell. 



Some little while ago, back in Noah's 

 time or later, I wrote an article on the 

 use of "soft sugar" for feeding bees, 

 and sent it to some magazine, and the 

 careless editor let it get into print, and 

 since then I have been more or less 

 busy trying to make other persons un- 

 derstand what I meant. 



"Soft sugar" is sugar that is not 

 hard. I guess that is plain. Hard sugar 

 is, well, mos/ everybody knows what 

 that is. I can well remember how hard 

 it was, in my bed, when it crumbled ofT 

 the top of the sugar cookies surrepti- 

 tiously eaten under the bed clothes. 

 That was bee food, too, for I was re- 

 puted //;<•« a very busy little bee — so 

 far as getting into mischief was con- 

 cerned. 



But the bee food that concerns us 

 now is quite different, and needs to be 

 formally introduced. From the juice 

 of the sugar cane and sugar beets there 

 are produced by cooking, sundry syr- 

 ups (molasses) and sugars. The sugars 

 are divided bv the refiners into 15 dif- 



No. 5 —Ready to Start for the Oi t-Yard. 



ferent grades, with the granulated su- 

 gars at one end and the moist brown 

 sugars at the other. In between is a 

 grade known as "Empire A," a soft, 

 moist, cream-colored sugar, very pleas- 

 ant to the taste, and sold under various 

 names, as '' A," " Coffee A," and " Cof- 

 fee." There are several other creamy 

 sugars which are sometimes given 

 when "A " is called for, and though re- 

 sembling it in color, work quite dif- 

 ferently when used as bee food. Well, 

 now we are talking about the grade 

 "Empire A." Don't forget that, and 

 don't later use something different and 

 condemn the system for the failures 

 due to yourself. 



This sugar is given to the bees just 

 as you buy it, zcit/iot/t the addition of 

 any water or any honey. It is put into 

 division-board feeders and hung in the 

 brood-chamber, and the bees lick away 

 at it until it is all gone. That is sim- 

 ple, isn't it ? Quite, but don't expect 

 a measly little, petered out bunch of 

 bees to chase to the other side of a cold 

 brood-chamber when they are cross 

 and sleepy, to warm up the food for 

 the babies, for they won't do it. And I 

 wouldn't either. So put the sugar 

 feeder smack up against the cluster, 

 and this applies as well to one colony 

 as another. In hot, humid weather of 

 summer, when the bees are spreading 

 out all over creation, it doesn't matter 

 much where you place the feeder, so 

 long as it is in the same hive ; but in 

 the spring time, when you are most 

 likely to use this plan to prevent star- 

 vation or to keep up brood-rearing, 

 see that the feeder is close up to the 

 brood. 



That is about as far as the originator 

 of the plan went in its use. Sho. ! No, 

 I didn't originate it. I'll tell you about 

 who did later. 



Well, being possessed of an everlast- 

 ing faculty for e.xperimenting, I one 

 day tried a little feeder of this sugar in 

 one of the baby nuclei I use for queen- 

 mating, and have used nothing else 

 since. A pound of the soft sugar will 

 keep one of the little colonies going 

 for the whole season. Rather disturbs 

 the complacency of those who like to 



trot around every evening with a tea- 

 pot pouring syrup into feeders. Thank 

 you, not for me. I prefer to swing in 

 the hammock, with some fair friend, 

 whispering little nothings and swat- 

 ting mosquitoes. 



One summer's day there strolled into 

 my yard a little fellow standing some 

 six feet six in his stockings, built all 

 over to match, except his heart, and 

 that is far bigger. He is a New Eng- 

 land Yankee, born among the green 

 hills of Vermont, trained by e.xperience 

 in several States, polished off by a 

 period in the State of Wooden Nut- 

 megs, finally settling comfortably down 

 in New Hampshire, where he has 

 quietly proceeded to out-yankee the 

 natives. On that summer day he took 

 a great shine to those sugar feeders, 

 particularly to the sugar — I think it 

 took me almost all of the next day to 

 refill them — and asked a few score 

 questions. The next thing I heard 

 from him was that he had been z^inler- 

 iiiff bees in cold New Hampshire on 

 soft sugar only. Oh, yes I Ac did it all 

 right, but don't be so all-fired sure that 

 you can. I certainly am not rash 

 enough to advocate it for others to use 

 for such purpose until from experience 

 I know' more about it. 



For some conditions combs of honey 

 make the best food, for other condi- 

 tions, syrup, for others, candy, and for 

 a whole lot the soft sugar cannot be 

 excelled. 



The foregoing was caused by that 

 Byer fellow saying things about a mer- 

 ry-go-round 'twixt the sugar. Editor 

 Root, and myself (.\merican Bee Jour- 

 nal, page 17). .-^.t present we are feel- 

 ing quite stuck up, thank you. 



The soft-sugar feeding was given to 

 the bee-keepers by Samuel Simmins, 

 of Heathfield, Sussex, England, long 

 years before Byer got mixed up with 

 bees — I don't know but what it was be- 

 fore he was born ; so just naturally he 

 knows nothing about it. iMr. Simmins 

 wrote a book telling about this and a 

 lot of other interesting things — not all 

 of them feasible in our commercial 

 bee-keeping — and that book should be 

 in the .Agricultural Department at 



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