104 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



■would dive into the flour and burrow into it 

 until it seemed as though they themselves must 

 lose their identity. They would fly towards us 

 and take it out of our hand, as we carried it 

 out to them ; and such an incessant jubilant 

 humming as they kept up while about it, made 

 one think they could not be other than the hap- 

 piest little scamps on the face of the earth. 

 And the huge 'little biscuits,' (as our children 

 term them), which they had deftly padded on 

 either leg, presented an appearance ludicrous in 

 the extreme, as they scampered hurriedly into 

 their hives. After the rain had wet down their 

 precious meal, and it had become baked over 

 the top, they would not give it up, but tunnelled 

 and burrowed under it until you imagined they 

 thejr were not bees, hut some liliputian wild 

 animals burrowing in the ground. The Chicago 

 tunnelling was not a comparison ! 'Bat did all 

 this meal really amouut to any positive good V 

 some of our neighbors asked. Of course it did. 

 Our bees have never before been in half so fine 

 a condition." 



I have quoted this passage because, in com- 

 mon with many other English bee-keepers, I 

 have never yet been successful in inducing the 

 bees to partake of flour of any description. 

 Some years since, having seen accounts of the 

 benefits which resulted from feeding bees with 

 rye, oat, or other flour, I tried both oatmeal and 

 wheat flour, given in various ways; but I never 

 could distinguish that they paid the least atten- 

 tion to it, except that when it was placed near 

 their entrances, they tried to convey it away 

 from the vicinity of their hive. Certainly, so 

 far as I could perceive, not a particle was eaten 

 or carried within their entrance. 



How can this apparent discrepancy be ac- 

 counted for ? I confess I cannot understand 

 it.* Two of my immediate friends, who also 

 tried the meal, also pronounce it an utter fail- 

 ure. I do not at all mean to dispute the accur- 

 acy of "Novice's" statement, but wish to know 

 why it is that we have failed where he has suc- 

 ceeded. 



-In warm localities and southern districts, 

 where early blossoming pollen-yielding trees 

 and plants abound, the bees will not carry in 

 flour of any description. They prefer the 

 natural article to any substitute whatever ; and 

 in any situation, forsake the meal pan as soon 

 as they can obtain a supply of pollen from 

 natural sources. In northern latitudes or colder 

 districts, however, where brooding en masse 

 commences long before catkins make their ap- 

 pearance on the willows, hazels, and maples, 

 the great demand existing for nitrogenous nu- 

 triment makes the workers eager to obtain it, 

 in the interval, from any available source, and 

 they readily accept the proffered substitute. 

 Probably in the milder climate of England, as 

 in the Southern States of the Union, natural 

 supplies may appear contemporaneously with 

 the first production of brood in the hives, and 

 the bees instinctively resort in preference to 

 that table which they find profusely decked by 

 the hand which caters for them as providently 

 as for the sparrow. — Ed. A. B. J. 



Some English bee-keepers, at the time of our 

 instituting the experiment, also tried meal and 

 flour feeding, and imagined that their bees de- 

 rived some benefit from it ; but their testimony 

 did not appear to be very positive or conclu- 

 sive. 



Another correspondent writing on a Bee Man- 

 agement," says : — "Strong stocks are the sheet 

 anchor in beekeeping ; and all worker comb in 

 the breeding apartment of the hive is the very 

 foundation of that sheet auchor. Without it, 

 it is impossible to keep strong stocks." It is 

 very true that strong stocks are the sheet an- 

 chor in beekeeping ; but is it a good practice to 

 have nothing but worker combs in the stock 

 hive ? If there is no drone comb there for the 

 queen to lay in, will not the bees almost cer- 

 tainly construct drone cell comb in the supers, 

 and the queen be induced to ascend for the pur- 

 pose of filling them with drone eggs, at the time 

 when the bees imagine that drones are requir- 

 ed ? I usually keep down the quantity of drone 

 combs in my stock boxes; but if, from any 

 cause, I should find in any particular hive all 

 the comb to be worker-celled, I should supply 

 one frame of drone comb in exchange for one of 

 the others. 



Further on, the same writer has the following 

 remarks : — "We must never allow the bees to 

 get in advance of the queen ; for if we do, the 

 prosperity of the swarm is checked at once ; 

 that is, if the bees are allowed to fill the combs 

 with honey in the spring, before the queen has 

 filled them with brood, the swarm will be an 

 unprofitable one. Take a swarm that is nearly 

 destitute of honey and feed it just right, that is 

 so as to promote breeding early in the spring, 

 and not fill the comb with honey, such a swarm 

 will invariably be a prosperous one. On the 

 other hand, allow a swarm that has honey 

 enough for all other purposes to appropriate 

 all the honey from one or two other hives early 

 in the spring, and before they consume it the 

 willows produce honey, then the fruit trees, the 

 white clover, &c. Such a swarm will dwindle 

 down to nothing, because the queen has no 

 place to deposit eggs for brood." 



This is all very true, as I have often had rea- 

 son to know. In some of our seasons, in De- 

 vonshire, we have early prolific honey gather- 

 ing. The cells in tho central combs being but 

 sparingly filled with brood, are at once appro- 

 priated by the bees for storing honey ; the 

 queen lays a very limited quantity of eggs, so 

 that by the time the principal honey harvest of 

 the season sets in, the population of the hive is 

 so small that very little advantage can be taken 

 of it, and the hive proves a very unremunera- 

 tive one to its owner. 



The writer also goes on to say : — " If from 

 any cause the queen does not commence laying 

 eggs as soon as she should in the spring, she 

 should be stimulated either by feeding or by un- 

 capping sealed honey in the hive, for whenever 

 the bees are fed they feed the queen. Thus the 

 rousing up of the bees and compelling them to 

 fill themselves with honey, promotes breeding. 

 Taking bees from another hive and putting 

 them in with a strange queen, causes them to 

 I feed her and pay more attention to her, especi- 



