THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



215 



has advanced until wurin, pleasant weather 

 is the rule and the first " brood " has hatched 

 out, and the bees have comnieuced to boom, 

 then is the time to Acrp them booming by 

 protection and by feeding when there is not 

 enough honey coming in to do this. After 

 brood rearing has commenced in real earn- 

 est there ought to be no check. On the con- 

 trary, it ought to go on increasing, reaching 

 its maximum at the opening of the main 

 harvest. Where the harvest comes early and 

 is of short duration, as is the case where it 

 comes from clover alone, there is no hope 

 of success unless the colonies are in prime 

 condition at the opening of the harvest, and 

 in all earnestness let me ask if there are 

 more potent agencies, in bringing about this 

 result, than protection, and feeding when 

 necessary? 



I am not sure what style of feeder is best 

 for this spring, stimulative feeding. By the 

 way, I do not like the word "stimulative" 

 as applied to this kind of feeding. I would 

 feed simjily to take the place of the natural 

 honey flow when the latter fails. A feeder 



upper edges of which are " bee-space " below 

 the cover. The reservoir is in the center, 

 and just over it a part of the cover slides 

 back in grooves to allow the feeder to be 

 filled. The inside partitions, next the re- 

 servoir, reach the cover but do not quite 

 reach the bottom of the feeder. This allows 

 the feed to pass under the partitions and rise 

 up between the thin slats. While this feeder 

 is preeminently adapted for the feeding back 

 of extracted honey to secure the completion 

 of unfinished sections, or for feeding bees 

 for winter, I know of no reason why it is not 

 just as suitable for the spring feeding of 

 which we are talking, as is any other feeder. 

 If some other is better, the object of this 

 discussion is to make that discovery. The 

 Heddon feeder will answer as well as any for 

 an open-air feeder; but, after giving this 

 style of feeding a pretty fair trial upon 

 several occasions, I cannot give it a very 

 warm approval. In my apiary there were no 

 other bees within range, but the difficulty is 

 that if a spell of cool weather prevents the 

 bees from flying, no food is brought in at a 



/^-; 



L^_^^ 



J_^. 



THE NEW HEDDON FEEDER. 



ought to possess the following points. It 

 should allow the apiarist to learn if it needs 

 filling without its being removed. It should 

 allow of re-filling without coming in contact 

 with the bees. It should not be accessible to 

 robbers nor attract their attention. I doubt 

 if there is any advantage in a feeder that 

 places the food in close contact with the 

 cluster. If the weather is so cool, or the col- 

 ony so weak in numbers, that the bees will 

 not leave the cluster to visit the feeder, I 

 have my doubts as to the advisability of 

 feeding. The Heddon feeder is the first one 

 that I ever saw that I thought enough of to 

 make and use. It is exactly the size of the 

 top of the hive, and the bees come up at the 

 openings on either side. They pass over and 

 down between the perpendicular slats, the 



time when it is most needed. Besides this, 

 the colonies that stand the most in need of 

 feeding are quite apt to be the ones that take 

 the least. With open air feeding I have seen 

 the combs of some colonies fill up, and white 

 burr combs appear onthe topsof the frames, 

 while other colonies would show scarcely a 

 trace of any feed brought in. 



The fact that honey contains nitrogeneous 

 matter would lead one to think that it would 

 be the best food to give colonies that were 

 heavily engaged in brood rearing, but when 

 there is an abundance of pollen in the hive, 

 or being brought in, as is usually the case in 

 this locality, sugar, at the present prices, is 

 decidedly the kind of food to use. 



More honey can be secured by giving the 

 bees an abundance of room in the supers to 



