THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



215 



aj2:aiiist watoriiii;. But this question was 

 not setlU'd thereby. If tlie bees take the 

 water they seem to iiei'd it. Ifotiier uu- 

 watered colonies winter well, the question 

 may arise, what other source of water 

 may l)ees have? 



In Germany are uiany beel<eepers, who 

 feed to tiie l)ecs inside of the hive water 

 1)y the gallon in winter, sprln>;- and sum- 

 mer and some aninii that waterins^- l)ees in 

 winter is absohiiely necessary for good 

 and sure wintering results. 



Prof. A. J. Cook in his Manual of tiie 

 .'Vpiary, fifth edition, page 98, says: 



Mr. Quiiiby, DoolittU^ and otliers say 

 water is also un element of this food (for 

 the larva'). But bees often liroed ver_y 

 rapidly wlien tliey do not leave the liiveat 

 all, and so water, other than that cou- 

 tained in the honey eaten, can not be added. 

 The time when bees seem to need water 

 and so repair to the rill and the pond, is 

 during the heat of summer, when they are 

 most l)usy. May this not l)e quafled to 

 slake their own thirst?" 



AVlien 1 read this about seven years ago 

 it seemed very strange to me. I learned 

 in Germany, that, for breeding, the bees 

 need much water, the most in spring. So 

 it is surely interesting to look the matter 

 over again. 



Regarding the point that bees carry the 

 most water in hot summer time, Professor 

 Cook is surely mistaken. I water my bees 

 by a trough, because my apiary is so situ- 

 ated tliat tlie bees had very far to fly to 

 any other water source. 



in our climate some bees will carry wa- 

 ter all the tin)e : and if the weatlier allows 

 they take water in winter, spring, sum- 

 mer and fall, but in spring as soon as 

 l)reeding commences and no nectar is to 

 be found in blossoms, a larger number 

 of bees visit the trough. I have to till my 

 trough as often as twice and three times 

 a day. Tins is about twenty gallons for 

 100 to 130 colonies. As soon as the iioney 

 flow commences, less bees appear on the 

 trougii. In our dry summers, wlien ev- 

 ery blossom is dried out, the Ijees nearly 

 stop flying, breed very little and act in 

 general ([uite similar as in winter; then 

 very few bees will drink water. More 

 than this, carrying water is exactly pro- 

 portional to breeding. 



The question is now for what purpose 

 tiie bees use this amount of water? 



Some beekeepers in Germany (l>esides 

 others, Dzierzon) aflirm tiiat the bees need 

 water in winter to dissolve the candied 

 honey. Schoenfeld is not against this 

 opinion. 



I believe that for tliis purpose wat<'r is 

 nev'er used. In dissolving candied luniey. 

 1 think tlie bees take tlie same way as we 



beekeepers do : tiiey will warm tiie honey 

 and get it liquid. In ilie centre of the 

 cluster tlie temperature is always suffi- 

 ciently high to li(inefytlie candied honey; 

 of course, in a longer time than we need by 

 liigher temperature. If you will pour "a 

 little water on candied honey of a moder- 

 ate temperature (say 00° F.), it will take 

 a very long time to get tlie honey licpiid, if 

 ever. If you will warm it, it will get liq- 

 uid as soon with water as wiliiout. So I 

 cannot see any use for water in winter for 

 this purpose. 



It issomevvliat different if pollen in the 

 cells is hard and dry. The bees will 

 moisten this pollen by water to make use 

 of it. 



Some beekeepers say the bees need wa- 

 ter to prepare the fofxl for the larvae.. 

 This food freshly placed in the cells is 

 very much thinner or more watery than 

 honey; but this is no proof Ihat water is 

 added. This jelly is prepared in the stom- 

 ach of the l)ees and is quite diflerent from 

 the food taken by the breeding bees. So 

 it may seem possible that in the stomach 

 some sugar is changed to acid (in fact, 

 this jelly is sour) or otherwise the sugar 

 may disappear. 



On the other side, the consumption of 

 virater is surely in connection with brood- 

 rearing in some way. If we water a col- 

 ony and then remove the queen, the bees 

 will take water as long as uncapped brood 

 is in the hive; as soon as the last larva 

 is capped no more water will be taken by 

 the bees. 



In one of these articles I have said, that 

 bees need water to eat pollen. The pollen 

 in the honey stomach floats in a fluid of 

 honey and water. Here necessarily water 

 is added and sometimes sweetened water 

 only may be used besides the pollen. You 

 know how the stomach-inouth 011 the bot- 

 tom of the honey stomach catches the pol- 

 len out of this fluid. If honey alone wei-e 

 used, the pollen would float on the surface 

 of the honey and the stomach-mouth could 

 not catch any pollen. 



We shall see in a later article that the 

 bees need pollen to prepare the food for 

 the larvte and a great amount of pollen 

 too, and this explains the connection of 

 the consumption of water with breeding. 



More than this, to prepare the food for 

 the young larvaj a quite fixed amount of 

 pollen and honey is reciuired. Without 

 pollen the bees can do it a short time only 

 for few larvae. The bees could not get 

 this fixed mixture, if the pollen would 

 float in pure honey; they always would 

 get too much honey. The construction of 

 the stomach-mouth will explain this. 



So it seems necessary to water the bees 

 in early spring, when they cannot carry 



