134 



THE AMERICAN BLE- KEEPER. 



Now as there is no likelihood of 

 getting any more surplus this season, 

 remove all the surplus boxes, crowd- 

 ing the boxes into the lower story. 

 If you have a good queen in each 

 hive and bees to cover eight frames 

 with twenty-five pounds of good 

 honey or sugar syrup there is scarce- 

 ly any risk in wintering them nicely. 



Beginners should remember the fol- 

 lowing suggestions : 



Do not take too much honey from 

 your bees. Remember that it is their 

 surplus you should take and nothing 

 else. Do not kill the cow to get the 

 milk, or the hen to get the egg, 

 when you open a hive of bees. If 

 you see any robber bees flying about 

 you may be sure there is no honey in 

 the fields, and you must avoid leav- 

 ing the hives open, or exposing honey 

 in their reach. A robber bee is easily 

 recognized by its quick motions and 

 sneaking ways. All bees will become 

 robbers, if tempted with exposed 

 sweets in times of scarcity. 



Decrease the size of the entrance 

 of your hives when the honey crop is 

 over, but be sure and have it very 

 large during the honey crop. In sea- 

 sons of scarcity your bees should be 

 fed. You will have such a season 

 once in ten, and the busy little things 

 will repay you fully the following 

 year. Honey dew and fruit juice are 

 bad winter food, and should be ex- 

 tracted from the combs. When you 

 have to feed, if you cannot get good 

 honey, use good sugar syrup. If bees 

 have to be fed for winter, the food 

 should all be given them before the 

 opening of cold weather. 



Sunny Side, Md. 



Feeding Bees, 



BY MRS. L. HARRISON. 



Dr. Miller, 1 suppose if I should 

 ask you, if the bees ever paid you 

 for that six or eight barrels of sugar 

 that you fed them, you would say. 

 " I don't know. " I have never fed 

 bees very much, principally the odds 

 and ends of honey that accumulate in 

 the honey house during the year, and 

 next spring there may be considerable 

 of this year's honey dew to dispose of 

 in this way. 



Last spring my partner in the 

 •■sweets and stings " said that I had 

 better feed the bees and purchased 

 sugar for that purpose. But 1 

 wouldn't do it. and some of the sugar 

 that I didn't make into ginger cakes 

 is in the honey house now. I gave 

 what frames of honey that I had to 

 those needing it and fed three or four 

 more t<> ease my conscience, for fear 

 that they might starve. 1 could see 

 neither pleasure or profit in feeding a 

 lot of bees when there was not the 

 leasl prospect of clover honey, and 

 basswood only lasts a day or two in 

 this locality. I do not regret thai I 

 did not feed bees more last spring. 

 If I had done so [ might have had 

 more sections of honey-dew than I 

 now have, but I've all 1 want as 

 The hives are full and running over 

 with bees, and if there comes a tall 

 flow, which I expect . there are plenty 

 of workers to gather it. 



I've often wondered why bee-keep- 

 ers feed so much, but then localities 

 differ. I've been keeping bees since 

 1872, and to my knowledge ['ve never 

 known a fall when a good colony of 

 bees did not fill its hive. The rich 



