THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



i(i:i 



For the American Bee Journal. 



Feeding Bees. 



I tind in our bee journiils consklerablo 

 written upon tlie subject of feeding bees. 

 I tliinlv it an object wortliy of considersition 

 and ellort, to tind and pursue a system that 

 will save the necessity of feeding at all. 

 To secure this it is only necessary to adopt 

 a hive in which we (-an eftectivcly control 

 the swarming and limit the number of col- 

 onies to the amount of honey produced by 

 the accessible tield. 



The great body of farmers do not desire 

 to, and will not make, bee-keeping a prin- 

 t-ipal business. Wiiat they do in securing 

 the honey produced in their fields must be 

 done incidentally, other interests of the 

 farm claim their principal attention. I 

 presume few will be found among them to 

 use movable comb hives, to raise Itiiliau 

 queens ; or honey extractors to furnish ex- 

 tracted honey for market. That must be 

 done by experts in the business, whether 

 they are farmers or not. 



For them the best hive will give about 

 3,500 cubic inches in the breeding and win- 

 tering apartment ; and as much more in 

 small frames or boxes, for storing surplus. 

 With such an arrangement, the bees will 

 be very likely to make a fair arrangement 

 with the farmer, and gather the honey in 

 his and other surrounding fields, at the 

 halves. If the field is very good and the 

 season fine, they give him two-thirds, 

 requiring only one-third for consumption. 

 My enquiry is whether it will not be better 

 to give this room in the breeding apart- 

 ment, and save the necessity of feeding at 

 all. 



These thoughts have occured to me now 

 on reading, P. W. McFartridge's experi- 

 ence, in the May numlier of the American 

 Bee Journal page 112 — he gives as the 

 product of his apiary a little over 4,000 lbs. 

 He tells us that he has fed 1,100 lbs. of A 

 coffee sugar, and that 200 lbs. of the honey 

 soured a little he reserves for feeding. This 

 leaves 2,700 lbs. of honey. 



With 250 cubic inches ample room is 

 given for storing a winter's supply for the 

 bees, and feeding is unnecessary. 



There nmst, however, be another condi- 

 tion implied to prevent danger, that is, that 

 there are not too many colonies in the field. 

 If there are more colonies in the field than 

 can be supplied Avith winter stores, they 

 must be fed or starve, even if each colony 

 had a meetiug-houso to work in. 



I liid it ditficult to so express my ideas 

 upon this subject as to be understood. 



1. If an apiary is located in a field yield- 

 ing 12,000 lbs. of honey, and each colony of 

 bees for breeding and winter, will consume 

 GO lbs. ; 200 colonies would consume it all. 



2. One hundred colonies would consume 



6,000 lbs. and give 6,000 lbs. in surplus. 



3. Fifty colonies would consume 3,000 

 lbs. and give 9,000 lbs. in surplus. 



4. If you put 300 colonies into the field 

 there would be but an average of 40 lbs. to 

 each colony for both breeding season and 

 winter, and a great amount of A sugar or 

 something else must be fed, or almost all 

 of them starve to death. 



In the last vase a few of the strongest 

 colonies might get an early start, and live 

 throughout the winter. Possibly some of 

 them give a little surjjlus ; but nine-tenths 

 of them more or less would starve to death. 

 Some of them would die so early that the 

 moths, in their weakened state, would 

 weave their webs. Some of them would 

 wander over the combs defiling them. — 

 Some would crawl or fiy out of the hive 

 and die, and some would try robbing to 

 make a living. Nobody knows what the 

 matter is. Some lay it to the moths ; some 

 to dysentery ; some to robbing ; and some 

 to "don't know," while the whole truth is 

 there are far too many bees. There might 

 have been some cases where the bees left 

 some honey in a part of their hive that was 

 out of their reach in a cold spell, and it is 

 even said, "Oh, no they did not starve to 

 death, there was honey left. " 



In the case of 200 colonies having 60 lbs. 

 each in the field, perhaps one quarter just 

 go through the winter and only half perish. 



In the case of 100 colonies they would 

 not give 00 lbs. each but some might give 

 100 lbs. and some 20 more or less. 



So in the case of 50 colonies, 180 lbs. 

 each. As has sometimes been known they 

 may range from 100 to nearly 300 lbs. 



What I would urge is that 100 colonies 

 in the supposed field is better than 200. 

 And 200 colonies is better than 300. 



Indeed the farmer had better have no 

 bees than to have so many more than his 

 field will supply. From 50 to 100 colonies 

 is a full supply for the field ; 100 colonies 

 would store half the production in surplus. 



While we are taught by some that "there 

 is no danger of overstocking the field," I 

 believe without one doubt that three- 

 fourths of the ditticulties we encounter 

 arise from over-stocking. 



Woodstock, Vt. Jasper Hazen. 



For the American Bee Journal. 



My Experience. 



It is some time since I have written for 

 the AmeriCzVN Bee Journal, but during 

 that time my experience has been worth 

 gold. In 1872, I lost 43 hives by dysen- 

 tery, and last year, I lost 15 hives from 

 robbery. At the end of the year I bought 

 a beautiful $2 queen from "Olley." This 

 queen died last season in a strong hive, 

 which started cells profusely I counted 



