454 BOARD OP AGRICULTURE. 



breeding right away, more rapidly than if they had been on sealed honey. As to 

 the point of paying, that depends on conditions: If you have a good honey crop 

 coming on it would be well to brood up and have your bees at a proper age when 

 the honey-flow comes. 



Mrs. Harrison, of Illinois. I have had some experience in feeding, and my 

 opinion is that it don't do so much good to feed weak ones as strong ones. I have 

 done more harm feeding than not to feed. 



Mr. Leming. I have been three years past trying to get the best yield of honey 

 out of bees that can be got. In the spring, if you are going to have a good crop of 

 honey, and if your bees are weak, it don't pay to feed them, but if you will double 

 your weak ones up, and then keep that colony breeding until clover comes, and 

 yoa get a good crop of honey, if the honey flow is good. 



Mr. Bull. I have fed at different times. I have also noticed that colonies 

 which had no attention got along just as well as those that were fed. I did not 

 feed last spring and they done well. 



Mr. Scholl. There are many beginners who want to know something about this 

 matter. At the National Association, which met in the halls of the Legislature in 

 1872, Mrs. Tucker remarked in that convention aa her experience : "We used to 

 practice spring feeding with stimulating food, but it does more harm than good, 

 and we now depend on early spring flowers for food." I practiced it ten or twelve 

 years ago, and found it did not pay. We want to keep them warm enough, and 

 move all the division boards until the space is full of bees. Let there be as much 

 honey in the hive as is needful; they will not commence breeding until they 

 gather natural pollen. I have fed gallons of diluted honey in the spring, and 

 pick out a few colonies from which I wished to get early colonies with good suc- 

 cess. When the honey season commenced the first of June, the other colonies in 

 the yard were just as strong as those which had been stimulated. Localities 

 may differ. 



Secretary Daugherty. I am an advocate of spring feeding, but not so extensive 

 as is advocated in some of our books. Either stimulating food or work of some 

 kind is beneficial in the spring. We usually take the thin colonies to feed in the 

 spring. Several years since I doubled up colonies, but it don't pay in the 

 spring. I succeed better feeding colonies with more stores in the hive than with 

 those which had little. The result is much better by feeding in quantity, than to 

 feed little at a time. I don't feed daily, as is recommended by our books. I have 

 tried feeding for special purposes, but always made a failure. 



Mr. Muth. It pays to unite colonies in the spring, but not early. If you unite 

 them, most assuredly two weak ones will make on© strong one. One good strong 

 hive will produce more honey than two weak ones. 



Secretary Daugherty. Early spring doubling is when we commence spring feed- 

 ing, before feeding from locust and raspberry. We double back colonies to make 

 good working colonies. 



Mr. Kennedy. I am satisfied it is a mistake to stimulate the weak ones. 



