S70 



'GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



stop the pilfering. Finally we si:arted up 

 our outdoor feeders, when, presto! the ugly 

 disposition of the bees as well as the rob- 

 bing stopped instanter. 



For the benefit of those who may have 

 forgotten about feeding outdoors, we may 

 state that only sweetened water is used for 

 the purpose. That is to say, we mix sugar 

 and water in the proportion of ten parts of 

 water to one of sugar. This is placed in the 

 trough feeders t-f the Simplicity or Alexan- 

 der type. For 50 to 100 colonies there 

 should not be less than 12 of such feeders. 

 In other words, the feeding area must be 

 scattered over considerable area to prevent 

 the bees from crowding each other. 



The strength of the sweetened water will 

 depend somewhat on weather conditions. 

 Sometimes a ten-to-one solution is a little 

 too strong, causing the bees to rush at it too 

 hard. In that co.se we have used a strength 

 of twelve to one. At other times eight to 

 one is too weak, and the bees will hardly 

 touch it. 



If one cannot obtain the ordinary trough 

 feeders he can use a series of shallow dishes, 

 pouring about an inch or so of syrup into 

 each one of these receptacles. Then throw 

 in a few handfuls of straw or dry gi'ass so 

 the bees will not drown in the mixture. The 

 advantage of the trough feeders is that the 

 bees do not meet the obstruction of the 

 straw against their wings in the attempt to 

 fly, thus prematurely wearing out their 

 wings. The objection to the straw may be 

 overcome by using wooden floats made of 

 several slats nailed together. 



There will be no need of practicing out- 

 door feeding except in cases where hives 

 must necessarily be opened. In the produc- 

 tion of extracted honey it may sometimes 

 be necessary. In some cases, when one is 

 extracting after the general honey-flow, he 

 may find it an advantage to practice out- 

 door feeding during the time the hives are 

 being opened. In such a case he should use 

 honey as a sweetening agent rather than 

 sugar, otherwise he will get sugar in his 

 honey — enough so it might cause Uncle Sam 

 to class it as adulterated. 



Feeding in the hives is far to be preferred 

 except to prevent robbing. Outdoor feeding 

 causes the bees to wear themselves out un- 

 necessarily, since the flight back and forth 

 to outdoor feeders, the jostling and rubbing 

 themselves against each other in their strug- 

 gles to get at the sweet, causes them to wear 

 out their wings. The feeding in the hives 

 produces no such et¥ect. 



Again, it sometimes happens that one 

 finds his entire yard is .on the verge of star- 

 vation. When lie discovers that this is the 



case lie can feed at once by feeding outdoors. 

 Later he can practice the in-liive plan, 

 which we decidedly recommend. 



The outdoor feeding has the further ob- 

 jection that other bees in the neighborhood, 

 including those of other beekeepers, are fed 

 at your expense. 



m and 

 lediea and Akron, O.; Bee-forage 

 at Swamps in the Fall ; a New-oM 

 Sctueme to Make Increaee on 

 Swamp Bee^pastare 



We have been practicing migratory bee 

 keei^ing, moving bees from Medina to Flor- 

 ida and from Florida back again after 

 making increase. In spite of the fact that 

 we brought back the equivalent of about 900 

 colonies we have only about a third of them 

 left, the rest of them being all sold off for 

 nuclei and pound packages. At the present 

 rate we shall not have a hundred colonies 

 left. If so we shall be up against the prob- 

 lem of making increase so that we can have 

 enough bees to send a carload south again, 

 if we should so decide. 



We can make a colony, according to ex 

 periments made by our Mr. Selser at Phil- 

 adelphia, by feeding sugar sj'rup, for about 

 $1.00. But this amount on 300 colonies 

 would be $300. With an automobile truck 

 for mo\'ing bees from one locality to anoth- 

 er, $300 would be more than enough to move 

 the bees in all directions from Medina, and 

 then move them back again for cellar win- 

 tering, provided, of course, suitable locali- 

 ties could be found where the bees can breed 

 up on natural fall pasturage, and thus 

 eliminate the cost of sugar. 



During the last week or so we have been 

 scouring the country in an automobile. 

 During one of these trips we came in con- 

 tact with Mr. A. J. Halter, of Akron, Ohio, 

 20 miles away — a city where more rubber 

 tires are made for automobiles than in any 

 other city in the world. At one of Mr. Hal- 

 ter's outyards }iear a swamp he discovered 

 he could make increase after the main hon- 

 ey-flow was over, with very little expendi- 

 ture for sugar. Some years he does not buy 

 any. As we are needing more bees we 

 bought a hundred colonies of liim, and have 

 engaged him to increase this hundred in that 

 swamp location up to two hundred before 

 the bees are removed to Medina, and he 

 thinks he can do it. As this apiary is near 

 big swamps, there is an abundance of bee- 

 pasturage. As soon as clover and basswood 

 stop there is a succession of one flow after 

 another until late frost during the first of 

 October. Sometimes, says Mr. Halter, the 



