Kntered at the PostofBcc, Fort Pierce, Fla., as second-class mail matter. 



Vol. XVII. 



DECEMBER, 1907. 



No. i2. 



THE COST OF FEEDING FOR WINTER STORES. 



ALLEN LATHAM. 



DURING the session of the Con- 

 necticut Bee-Keepers' Associa- 

 tion this fall, some one put this 

 question : "How many pounds of 

 sugar should it take to make ten 

 pounds of winter stores?" Without 

 considering the loss attending the 

 feeding of sugar syrup, the writer sug- 

 gested 7 pounds of sugar as equivalent 

 to ID pounds of honey. He was 

 at once disputed, and rightly; for 

 though there may be as much food 

 value in seven pounds of dry sugar 

 as in ten pounds of honey or syrup, 

 there is not the same actual value. 

 The bee-keeper who had asked the 

 question finally arose and stated that 

 he had fed a colony something like 

 fifteen pounds and in the course of 

 two or three weeks discovered, to his 

 surprise, that the hive had gained only 

 five pounds in weight. 



The question and the discussion of 

 it caused me to become interested and 

 set me to investigating. It was neces- 

 sary for me to feed some fifty colonies 

 this fall, and I had planned to feed 

 each about ten pounds of dry sugar, 

 feeding in the five to three ratio. To 

 be safe, I decided to feed 12 1-2 

 pounds of sugar to each. In the five 

 of sugar to three of water ratio this 

 means about twenty pounds of syrup 

 to each, syrup thin enough to cause 

 rapid removal by the bees and yet 

 thick enough to avoid over-stimula- 

 tion. 



The feeding was done very expedi- 

 tiously, every average colony taking 

 care of the two gallons of feed in 



fortj'-eight hours. This ratio means 

 twenty-five ounces of sugar made into 

 a quart of syrup, as anyone will find 

 by trial, so that 12 1-2 pounds of 

 sugar furnished two gallons of feed. 



I chose three colonies of average 

 strength which I weighed just previ- 

 ous to the feeding, and also just two 

 weeks after the second day of feeding. 

 This lapse of two weeks allowed am- 

 ple time for the curing of the syrup, 

 so that it is fair to say that all loss 

 due to feeding could by that time be 

 easilyt shown. 



The three hives weighed respective- 

 ly 75> 75' ^"d 65.5 before feeding, and 

 89.5, 89, and 79 at the second weigh- 

 ing. The gains respectively therefore 

 were 14.5, 14, and 13.5 pounds. If we 

 assume that each colony had the right 

 to consume one pound of stores 

 (whether fed or not) during the two 

 weeks, the actual gain would be 15.5, 

 15, and 14.5. 



It will thus be seen that winter 

 stores resulted which in weight sur- 

 passed the amount of sugar fed, a 

 result which is highly gratifying, bet- 

 ter than I had anticipated. I had al- 

 ways assumed that when I fed ten 

 pounds of sugar I gave ten pounds of 

 feed, whereas I now know that when 

 I feed ten pounds of sugar I furnish 

 more than ten pounds of feed. 



It will now be asked: How can you 

 reconcile your results with those de- 

 scribed in the meeting? I cannot as- 

 sert with absolute confidence just 

 what caused the great loss sustained 



