406 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW 



Another weak spot in the Deacon's 

 arg'ument is found in the following: 

 "Perhaps they (the sugarees) will 

 elucidate the because why the onex- 

 pected caller so often finds feeders full 

 of syrup 'accidentally^' left on during- 

 the harvest." 



I know some bee-keepers are sadly 

 lacking- in business ability, but I have 

 yet to meet one so far "off" as to keep 

 bees at home by feeding them sugar at 

 five cents a pound, when they might 

 otherwise go out in the fields and 

 gather honey for nothing. 



^'Waf-m^-m^-m^ 



"feeding back" a distinct branch 

 of bee-keeping. 



At the St. Louis convention the mat- 

 ter of the profit in feeding bees 

 sugar that it might be stored in the 

 sections was quite thoroughly dis- 

 cussed. The position was taken by 

 some that it was folly for people to 

 say that the bees were fed sugar that 

 they might make it into honey, that 

 there was no profit in it. Dr. Miller 

 asked: "If I feed sugar at five cents a 

 pound, how much must I sell the pro- 

 duct for to get my money back ?" No 

 one could tell him, and, if there could 

 have several persons answered him, 

 there would have been as many dift'er- 

 ent answers as there were persons. 

 It was finally voted that Louis Scholl, 

 of the Texas Experiment Apiary, 

 should make some experiments and 

 report. 



Let me say that the feeding- of sugar 

 or honey, that it be stored in the sec- 

 tions, is as distinct a branch of bee- 

 keeping as that of commercial queen 

 rearing. Mr. Doolittle once made 

 some experiments in feeding back 

 honey that it might be stored in sec- 

 tions, and reported a decided loss. I 

 have fed thousands of pounds in which 

 I secured three pounds of comb honey 

 from the feeding of four pounds of ex- 

 tracted hone^'; and there you are. It 

 depends upon the weather (the temper- 



ature), the strain of bees, the strength 

 of the colonies, the size of the hive, the 

 consistency and temperature of the 

 feed, and a whole lot of details too 

 numerous to mention. An experiment 

 in this line will prove little, or noth- 

 ing, as almost any results can be 

 secured. Although I have made a de- 

 cided success of "feeding back," I am 

 not inclined to advise it for the general 

 bee-keeper. 



■»*^«^*R«n«^ 



sugar for WINTER-STORES. 



In the last issue of the Review Mr. 

 Townsend re-affirms his good opinion 

 of sugar as winter stores for bees. 

 Mr. A. C. Miller thinks it was not the 

 sugar so much as the fact that the feed- 

 ing- allowed the bees to place the food 

 where they would find it most conven- 

 ient for winter use. Dr. Miller, in 

 Gleanings, quotes from a foreign bee 

 journal the views and experience of 

 Herr Reidenback regarding the use of 

 sugar, to the effect that sugar is so 

 lacking in nitrogenous matter that bees 

 having nothing else to live on during 

 the winter are likely to come out in 

 the spring with their vitality sadly 

 impaired. Mention is made of two 

 populous colonies wintered entirely' 

 on sugar. They passed the winter 

 fairly well, but "petered out" in the 

 spring. In opposition to this let me 

 say that years ago, when the "pollen 

 theory" was at its height, I several 

 times wintered colonies successfully 

 on sugar stores alone. Not onlj' did 

 they winter well, but built up well in 

 the spring-. In doing this I took pains 

 to select combs in which there was not 

 one cell of pollen. The bees were 

 shaken upon the combs, after brood 

 rearing and honey gathering were 

 past, and then fed sugar syrup until 

 the combs were full and sealed over. 

 Of course I know that bees must have 

 some nitrogenous food in order to re- 

 pair waste tissue, but there is very 

 little waste of tissue during the semi- 

 hibernation of winter, and as soon as 



