214 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



some one to do so; or, if, when I have 

 brought up my pet to greater maturity, it 

 should retain its virtue and character, I pre- 

 sume that I will not be averse to an offer of 

 marriage should a suitor as worthy as Bing- 

 ham's smoker make proposals. As you sug- 

 gest, a union of the two might be very desi- 

 rable." 



• 



NOT FUNICS BUT TUNISIANS. 



For the purpose of straightening out some 

 of the "snarls "and learning the truth in 

 regard to the so-called Punic beea, Mr. T. 

 W. Cowan has visited that part of Africa 

 from which the Funics were reported to have 

 been brought. He found nothing except 

 Tunisians and the very man from whom' 

 John Hewitt of England had procured the 

 bees that he called Funics and offered for 

 sale at ridiculously high prices. Of course, 

 it is a fraud to sell bees for what they are 

 not, but the greater evil, so far as results are 

 concerned, will probably be the introduc- 

 tion of bees that are very irritable and great 

 users of propolis, without having sufficiently 

 compensating good qualities. Bro. Cowan 

 is to be commended for his eiiterprise in 

 the matter. 



• 



FEEDING AND FEEDEKS. 



Having finished the subject of " Smoke 

 and Smokers, " let us take up the topic of 

 " Feeding and Feeders. " In the first vol- 

 ume of the Review the feeding back of ex- 

 tracted, honey to secure the completion of 

 unfinished sections received a very thorough 

 discussion, but a discussion of feeding bees 

 under the many other conditions when it 

 may be desirable, has never been iutroduced 

 into the Review. 



Why bees shall be fed, when they shall be 

 fed, what they shall be fed and how it shall 

 be done, are all points that will bear dis- 

 cussion. There is no time of the year when 

 bees may not need feeding to keep from 

 starving. There is one time of the year 

 when it oiiyht never to be necessary to feed, 

 and that is in the winter. Modern bee cul- 

 ture, with its small hives, reversible frames, 

 divisible, interchangeable brood cases, con- 

 traction of the brood nest, and honey ex- 

 tractors, has made it so easy to rob the l)ees 

 of their hard earned stores, that it is often 

 over-done, and then the act is followed by a 

 neglect to furnish, by feeding sugar, enough 

 stores to last the bees until they can again 



visit the flowers that bloom in the spring. 

 The man who is sufficiently acquainted with 

 himself to understand his failings in this di- 

 rection, ought to use large hives, and never 

 take a drop of honey from the brood cham- 

 ber. So seldom ought it to be necessary to 

 feed bees in winter, that Bro. Hill, of the 

 Guide, took me to task quite severely be- 

 cause I told in " Advanced Bee Culture, " 

 how the work ought to be done when by some 

 hook or crook the bees had gone into the 

 cellar short of stores. 



The best method of feeding bees in winter 

 is to give them a frame of honey. If all of 

 the honey is in the hives, look over all of the 

 colonies, or a sufficient number of them to 

 find combs of honey to give the starving 

 colonies. It is well known that all colonies 

 do not consume the same amount of stores, 

 and the variation is so great that it often 

 happens that enough combs of honey maybe 

 spared from those that have plenty, to sup- 

 ply the needy. If no honey is available, and 

 some colonies must be fed, a candy made of 

 granulated sugar is the best substitute. It 

 may be caked in shallow dishes and the thin 

 cakes laid over the bees and covered with en- 

 ameled cloth and two or three thicknesses of 

 old carpet. (Jr the candy may be " run " di- 

 rectly into the frames and the frames hung 

 in the hives adjoining the clusters of bees. 

 " Good candy " is also recommended for 

 this purpose. Thin boards are tacked to 

 one side of an empty brood frame, thus 

 forming a shallow tray. It is then filled 

 with candy and the other side covered with 

 boards except a small space at the top which 

 is left for the bees to enter. 



After the bees are placed upon their sum- 

 mer stands it is better that there be suffi- 

 cient food in the combs so that feeding will 

 not be necessary until settled warm weather 

 has come. Right here is where I believe 

 that bee-keepers have made their mistake 

 in practicing stimulative, spring feeding— 

 they feed too early. All that the bees need 

 is plenty of food already in the combs, and 

 protection from extremes of temperature. 

 Brood rearing needs no encouragement at 

 this stage of the programme. The vitality of 

 the bees should be preserved and reserved 

 until it can be used to the best advantage. 

 If brood rearing is commenced in earnest in 

 time to bring the colony up to its maximum 

 strength at the beginning of the main honey 

 harvest it is better than to have it reach this 

 pitch earlier in the season. After the season 



