SOUTHERN BEE CULTURE 



use; and bees are depending on certain plants that bloom at certain times 

 of the year for their supply of food, and this plant is also depending 

 on weather condifions to secrete honey. Suppose the weather conditions 

 are not favorable, and little or no honey is the result ; then the bees may 

 starve. Bees should not be fed unless they, need it ; and even then it 

 should be done in season, for, if fed too much, they will fill the brood- 

 nest with it and crowd the queen out. The portion of comb arou-id the 

 brood-nest, where the bees usually keep their ready supply of stores, should 

 never be allowed to become empty; for if it does, some loss will be the 

 result. Even when the bees go into the honey-flow they should have this 

 amount of stores, so that the new honey may go into the super i. Let me 

 emphasize this point, dear reader, keep this rim of stores around the 

 brood-nests. Don't think that, when bees are fed, they will waste the 

 feed, for they will at the proper time turn it into bees that will gather 

 honey, or utilize it to the best possible advantage. A great lesson in 

 economy is given to us by the honey-bees. 



I know nothing better to feed bees in than feeders sent out by the 

 bee-supply manufacturers. They are simple, cheap, and durable, and no 

 progressive apiary should be without them. 



There is no feeder better to build up nuclei with than the Doolittle 

 divisiqji-board feeder. • It rests in the hive like a frame, and can be 

 used in place of a division-board, and placed close to the outside frame, 

 the feed is handy to the bees, and the heat of them will keep it warm, 

 which is a great help to the bees in removing and utilizing it. This style 

 of feeder is also good and handy to feed full colonies in, as it can be set 

 in the hive next to the outside, and it will not be necessary to remove 

 the cover more than two inches to fill the feeder, and will disturb the 

 bees but little. 



If heavy feeding is to be done, there is no feeder more convenient 

 for the bees and the apiarist than the Miller feeder, which is set on top 

 of the brood-frames in a super. It holds 15 or 20 pounds of feed. 



If no feeders are bought to feed the bees in, tin pans about two inches 

 high, 10 or II wide, make very good feeders; but they must be filled with 

 straw or hay, or the bees will get into the syrup and drown. These pans 

 of straw are set on the brood-frames in empty supers, and filled with 

 feed; but in refilling the pans the bees should be smoked out of them, 

 as many which are down in the straw after feed will be drowned when 

 more feed is added. 



In feeding nuclei, the pans should be smaller, and rest right over the 

 cluster of bees on the brood-frames in empty supers ; but these empty supers 

 contain too much space for the small cluster of bees to keep at the 

 proper temperature, so a few sticks should be laid across the pans, and 

 sacks folded up and placed over them and the brood-frames so as to 

 give them as condensed a space to keep warm as possible. The sticks 

 across the pans will hold the sacks up so that the bees can easily get to the 

 feed. If full colonies were to be fed in this way during cool weather it 



