254 



THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



Not enough hone}' for winter stores 

 is the result. Many have asked me 

 if it will pay to buy sugar for the 

 bees, to whicli I answer, b}^ all 

 means it will, if the bees are 

 managed well when there is honey 

 for them to gather. If they are 

 run in a slipshod manner it would 

 be Avell, and I don't know but I 

 might sa3^ better, to give them to 

 some one who can run them as they 

 ought to be run. 



I know of no one here who has 

 taken a surplus beside myself and 

 that is not more than twenty pounds 

 per colony. I have heard of no 

 swarming out of 1,200 colonies 

 around. One of my apiaries of 

 fifty colonies cast about twenty-five 

 swarms. It was caused by contin- 

 uous feeding during the spring. 

 There was not enough honey and 

 pollen in the flowers all the spring 

 to keep up brood-rearing, so I sup- 

 plied the deficiency artificially, by 

 feeding in the open air in a large 

 shallow pan. I fed to fifty colo- 

 nies fifty pounds of syrup each day, 

 letting them carry it liome tlie same 

 as though they were gathering 

 from the flowers. It took twelve 

 pounds of honey to ten pounds of 

 water to make the feed the right 

 consistency. Sometimes I gave 

 them a double dose and it was a 

 real enjoyment to hear them roar 

 as they transferred it to their hives 

 and then the music as they were 

 evapoi'atingthe water from it in the 

 evening! By mixing so much 

 water with the feed it enables them 

 all to get a taste and be busy. 



To have something to do, es- 

 pecially with honey, is what brings 

 joy an(i encouragement to the heart 

 of the bees, and to increase that 

 quality in the bees with as little ex- 

 pense in honey as possible, I have 

 experimented to find out how large 

 a share may be water and yet the 

 bees carry it to their hives ; and, it 

 was found that under certain con- 

 ditions, they would carry it eagerly 



where it was only \ part honey. 

 It must be quite sweet to begin 

 with and to get them started ; but 

 after they get the habit of carrying 

 it from tiie pan, it don't make much 

 difference wliat it is if it only con- 

 tains a little honey. I don't think 

 I fed more than three pounds per 

 colony all the spring, .yet many of 

 the hives were destitute of honey 

 aside from the feed all the time ; 

 and needed the feed regularly to 

 prevent starvation. Where they 

 were fed, I could find large patches 

 of unsealed larvae, without the feed. 

 I believe there were many colonies 

 that did not average 500 unsealed 

 larviB in tlie whole hive, yet they 

 had several pounds of old stores 

 to fall back upon. It is slow busi- 

 ness the bees will do at brood rear- 

 ing when honey and flowers are as 

 scarce as they were last spring, and 

 unless the beekeeper can give them 

 some real encouragement at that 

 time the honey will be scarcer still. 

 New Hampton, Iowa. 



For the American ApicuUiirist. 



FERTILE WORKERS. 



A. Norton. 



I don't know whether many per- 

 sons have observed fertile workers 

 in the act of depositing eggs or not. 

 I have never read of any who had 

 actually seen them. If it is not 

 rare, then the following will be of 

 no interest and you can throw it 

 aside. 



The other day, opening a colon}'' 

 which had been made qneenless, 

 and ttie capped queen cells all de- 

 stroyed, and wliicli I had found a 

 week before to have fertile workers, 

 I chanced to discover the identical 

 ones — or two of them. I found 

 one in the act of laying, crammed 



