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THE AMERICAN BEE JOLHiNAC. 



Sept. 24, 1903. 





Contributed Articles 



) 



Stimulative Feeding of Bees in Spring. 



BY ARTHUR C. MILLER. 



ON page 518, Mr. Dadant says he will not write further on 

 the subject. That is to be regretted, for if he will take 



the pains to go into details, I believe he can shed more 

 light on an, at present, very obscure matter. 



His recent articles on the subject give the impression 

 that he is firmly convinced that there is a substantial profit 

 to be derived from such stimulation. Unfortunately, he has 

 failed to give sufficient data to enable the rest of us to go 

 and do likewise, and, when criticised, has resorted to soph- 

 istry instead of giving facts and arguments. This may have 

 been unintentional, but generally impresses the reader as 

 being an attempt to save a lost case. 



I write this article in the form of a reply to Mr. Dadant, 

 because his articles voice a widely accepted belief, or beliefs, 

 which I consider erroneous. It may be impossible to ex- 

 press myself so that no construction of personal antago- 

 nism will be inferred, but I desire solely to get at facts, not 

 to irritate any one. 



Frankly acknowledging that colonies may be stimu- 

 lated to more rapid growth by feeding, I hold, in common 

 with many others, that it is not profitable. Or, to state it 

 differently, other systems of management produce greater 

 gross returns and at a lesser cost. 



Before discussing the economy of it, let me allude to 

 what is assumed to be the effect of the food on the life and 

 actions of the individuals comprising the colony. 



In Mr. Dadant's article (page 518) I find this : "Feed- 

 ing enhances breeding because the bees are stirred up by it, 

 and because the queen is offered food more plentifully 

 whether it be royal jelly or honey." (My italics). In a pre- 

 vious article, Mr. Dadant said it was nectar. 



I assert that bees never o^>r food to the queen, and I 

 know whereof I speak. The bees that show their tongues 

 are seekitig food, not offering it. The sooner bee-keepers 

 learn this, the sooner they will solve several otherwise 

 troublesome problems. 



As I partly explained in my former article, the bees' 

 attitude toward the queen is not one of deference, but one 

 of obedience to two simple laws, /. e., making way for 

 deliberately moving bees, and desire for a particularly pal- 

 atable food, the odor of which emanates from the queen's 

 body. Mr. Dadant cites the circle about a queen on a comb 

 held in his hand. Such a condition is not normal, and an 

 exposed comb and the customary single-comb observation 

 hive are very poor contrivances for the study of bee-life. If 

 the curious bee-keeper would see the real attitude of workers 

 toward the queen, let him watch her in the crowded clusters 

 between the combs. The bees push her, scramble over her, 

 and stand in her way until her steady movement forces 

 them aside, and even then they won't always move. When 

 she needs food she goes about with her antenna; apparently 

 more active than usual, accosting bee after bee, until 

 at last one is found with the necessary " pap." Sometimes 

 along "talk " ensues, but when the bee is ready to yield 

 her supply, the queen's tongue advances, and is placed 

 directly in the other bee's mouth, the latter's tongue not 

 having been unfolded at all. Then the " show of tongues " 

 by surrounding bees occurs. 



The assumption that the slow and steady supply of food 

 to the colony causes the bees to offer to the queen more 

 food, being found to be wrong, how are we to account for 

 the increased laying ? The stimulus which incites the queen 

 to lay her first egg (after the winter resting spell) may 

 never be determined, but certainly, as she has deposited an 

 egg, her system calls for a restoration of tissue ; this means 

 hunger, slight, perhaps, but still existent. As soon as this 

 hunger becomes great enough it forces her to seek food. At 

 the time we are considering she may, and very probably 

 does, have to apply to many bees before finding any that 

 can supply her even a little " pap." As the number of bees 

 having such supply increases, so the queen's laying in- 

 creases, because she can more readily obtain the necessary 

 food. 



Generally, when bees are obtaining nectar we find 

 breeding increasing- in a ratio with the increase of young 

 bees, not in a ratio with the inflow of food. 



If it is not the direct action of the nectar-flow (or feeder- 

 flow) on the queen via the feeding-bees which stimulates 

 the queen, why does the accession of food stimulate brood- 

 production ? 



It " stirs up the colony," which, explained, is ; The bees 

 consume more honey, and necessarily produce more heat, be- 

 come less densely packed, and the queen, being but a part 

 of the whole, also moves more, finds more food, is more often 

 able to eat to satiety (the normal way of animal life), and per- 

 force lays more eggs. As the young bees become more numer- 

 ous, hence more quickly found ; also increasing heat and open 

 cells of pollen and of honey incite the young bees to full 

 feeding, and the more they eat the more likely the queen is 

 to get all she wants at each request. But even the well-fed 

 queen is not constantly at egg-laying, even in the height of 

 the season. Not infrequently she will retire to some ob- 

 scure corner and stay perfectly still for ten or more minutes 

 at a time, and during such rest the bees pass and repass as 

 if she was but an ordinary worker. Perhaps she is waiting 

 until they find some more " respect " or " deference." 



Most apiarists are familiar with the slowness of brood 

 increase in a colony composed of all old bees, no matter how 

 good the supply of nectar and of the sudden acceleration of 

 egg-production on giving the colony a frame of emerging 

 brood. 



Also, all apiarists are, I suppose, familiar with the 

 usual almost total cessation of egg-laying before a swarm 

 issues. Young bees are abundant then, and nectar and 

 pollen fairly pour in. If, under such circumstances, the bees 

 so assiduously offer food to the queen, how can she stop the 

 egg-development? It will not do to argue that bees stop 

 offering food to her and yet continue all their other functions. 



A brief comparison of the differences in internal con- 

 ditions between big colonies with superabundant stores (the 

 kind Mr. Dadant said produces the most honey) and less 

 populous colonies, with but moderate stores, may be appro- 

 priate here. 



In colonies of the first type, when winter breeding be- 

 gins (the latter part of December), food is plenty and readily 

 accessible, bees are numerous, cluster temperature steady, 

 and the brood-nest is soon surprisingly large for the time of 

 year. Towards spring young bees form quite a respectable 

 percent of the colony, and are steadily increasing. It is 

 these young bees which make this type of colonies to breed 

 so rapidly later on. Practically all of the winter-hatched 

 bees must, as regards nursing ability, be regarded as 

 "young" when early spring arrives, for a bee's age is 

 measured by time elapsed plus work done. 



With the smaller, or more scantily supplied colonies, 

 everything is conducted on a more meager scale, and later, 

 when stimulation is usually resorted to, they are away be- 

 hind the first type of colonies, and it takes a ruinous amount 

 of fussing to get them into shape for the harvest. 



In other words, by putting into winter quarters big colo- 

 nies with superabundant food, we conserve for next year 

 7nuch of this season's stored energy. By limiting stores, or 

 by having smaller colonies (so as to economize (?) in food, 

 some say), we lose much of such energy — an absolutely dead 

 loss. 



With the foregoing cursory explanation of the inner 

 life of the colony, 1 will leave that part of the subject and 

 turn to the economy of stimulative feeding. To be profit- 

 able it must enable us to get from the stimulated colonies 

 enough more honey than from the normally big and un- 

 stimulated ones, to pay for the food, and the labor and time 

 of the apiarist. Mr. Dadant, in " Revised Langstroth," says 

 of his large, well-supplied colonies, " They did not have to 

 be fed the following spring, became very strong, and yielded 

 the largest crop." (My italics). Also, he states that further 

 experiments proved " that there is a profit in leaving to 

 strong colonies a large quantity of honey, so that they will 

 not limit their spring breeding." (His italics.) 



I cited these quotations in a former article, to which Mr. 

 Dadant replied by quoting from an earlier edition of 

 "L/angstroth," that he (Langstroth) favored spring feed- 

 ing. If this advice of the great master was so valuable, 

 why did Mr. Dadant omit it from his revised edition, and, 

 instead, put special emphasis (by Italicizing) on the exact 

 antithesis of it ? 



Mr. Dadant cited the feeding of 60 colonies last spring, 

 and attributes much of his crop of 300 pounds per colony 

 (average) to such feeding. Hath the fox lost his cunning ? 

 Has Mr. Dadant so soon forgotten the studious care and 

 painstaking comparison which, I understand, his father 

 exercised, and by which the son is supposed to have prof- 

 ited ? Had he divided the apiary into two equal parts, had 

 one-half well-supplied over winter, and stimulated the other 



