56 BEES FOR PLEASURE AND PROFIT. 



appear much weaker than the other two, it may soon be 

 strengthened by giving it a frame full of brood which is just 

 about to hatch out from one of the other hives ; such combs of 

 brood are technically termed " hatching brood." 



Before the winter all the four stocks (viz., the parent hive, 

 the nucleus, and the first and second swarms) must be crowded 

 on to not more than seven frames each (six being the best 

 number usually) and fed rapidly, so that they have 20 lbs. 

 of stores each ; this will last them till towards the end of March 

 at least. In feeding up for the winter the bees should take the 

 food rapidly — not less than two pints a day — or much of it 

 will be employed in raising brood. The syrup used for feeding 

 up bees in autumn should be made Avith 5 lbs. of refined cane 

 sugar to every quart of water ; it is made in the same way 

 as the thin syrup used for stimulation in spring. If a stock has 

 seven frames (spaced not less than 1| inch from centre to 

 centre) full of sealed stores to within 3| inches of the bottom of 

 the frame, it may be considered safe to stand the winter. 

 Stocks should be fed up for the winter not later than October 1st, 

 whenever possible, as this gives them time to seal over their 

 stores before the cold weather comes. In no case can they be 

 fed up after the end of October, and daring the latter half of this 

 month even it is often difficult to get them to take down the 

 syrup, owing to the cold weather. When a stock is fed up early, 

 if it is weak it may be stimulated to continue breeding up to 

 the middle of October, after which all feeding should cease, as 

 if bees breed late into the winter dysentery is usually the result. 

 Syrian, Cyprian or Palestine bees should not be stimulated 

 after October 1st, as they are inclined to continue raising 

 brood for some time after the feeding has been stopp?d ; pro- 

 bably this tendency on their part to breed in winter is to be 

 accounted for by the fact that in their native lands they have 

 been accustomed to breed all through the winter months for 

 many hundreds of years past, as Mr. Blow, in his interesting 

 little work " A Bee-keeper's Experience in the East," p. 14, 

 mentions the fact that he found large patches of brood at mid- 

 winter in the native hives in Cyprus. 



There are many kinds of feeders designed for rapid autumn 

 feeding, of which the best are perhaps those of the " Canadian 

 Bee-feeder " type (fig. 35), which fit on the top of the hive like 

 a crate of sections. The bees walk up from the frames and get 

 into the feeder by a; they pass down to the syrup by the 



