AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



305 



lative" as applied to this kind of feed- 

 ing. I would feed simply to take the 

 place of the natural honey-flow when 

 the latter fails. 



A feeder ought to possess the follow- 

 ing points: It should allow the api- 

 arist to learn if it needs filling without 

 its being removed. It should allow of 

 re-filling without coming in contact with 

 the bees. It should not be accessible 

 to robbers, nor attract their attention. 

 I doubt if there is any advantage in a 

 feeder that places the food in close con- 

 tact with the cluster. If the weather is 

 so cool, or the colony so weak in num- 

 bers that the bees will not leave the 

 cluster to visit the feeder, I have my 

 doubts as to the advisability of feeding. 



The Heddon feeder is the first one 

 that I ever saw that I thought enough 

 of to make any use. It is exactly the 

 size of the top of the hive, and the bees 

 come up at the openings on either side. 



within range, but the difficulty is that if 

 a spell of cool weather prevents the bees 

 from flying, no food is brought in at a 

 time when it is most needed. Besides 

 this, the colonies that stand the most in 

 need of feeding are quite apt to be the 

 ones that take the least. With open- 

 air feeding I have seen the combs of 

 some colonies fill up. and white burr- 

 combs appear on the tops of the frames, 

 while other colonies would show scarcely 

 a trace of any feed brought in. 



The fact that honey contains nitrog- 

 enous matter would lead one to think 

 that it would be the best food to give 

 colonies that were heavily engaged in 

 brood-rearing, but when there is an 

 abundance of pollen in the hive, or 

 being brought in, as is usually the case 

 in this locality, sugar, at the present 

 prices, is decidedly the kind of food. 



More honey can be secured by giving 

 the bees an abundance of room in the 



THE "NEW HEDDON" FEEDEK 



They pass over and down between the 

 perpendicular slats, the upper edges of 

 which are "bee-space" below the cover. 

 The reservoir is in the center, and just 

 over it a part of the cover slides back in 

 grooves to allow the feeder to be filled. 

 The inside partitions, next the reservoir, 

 reach the cover, but do not quite reach 

 the bottom of the feeder. This allows 

 the feed to pass under the partitions 

 and rise up between the thin slats. 

 While this feeder is pre-eminently 

 adapted for the feeding back of ex- 

 tracted honey to secure the completion 

 of unfinished sections, or for feeding 

 bees for winter, I know of no reason 

 why it is not just as suitable for the 

 spring feeding of which we are talking, 

 as is any other feeder. 



The Heddon feeder will answer as 

 well as any for an open-air feeder; but, 

 after giving this style of feeding a 

 pretty fair trial upon several occasions, 

 I cannot give it a very warm approval. 

 In my apiary there were no other bees 



supers to the very end of the harvest. 

 This results in a larger proportion of 

 unfinished sections, but from the "feed- 

 ing back" of about 16,000 pounds of 

 extracted honey,, I know that these sec- 

 tions can be finished up at a profit. 



FALL, FEEDING OF BEES. 



Fall feeding, to give the bees an 

 abundance for winter, is the next kind 

 of feeding that demands attention, and 

 for this purpose I think that nearly all 

 will agree that sugar is the best food. 

 Instead of trying to get a bounty on 

 honey because there is one on sugar, let 

 us try getting all of the honey possible 

 from the bees, replacing it with the 

 cheaper and safer sugar. Let us so 

 manage the bees that the close of the 

 season finds them destitute, because we 

 have taken away the 10-cent honey, 

 and it can be replaced with 3-cent 

 syrup. 



Let me digress here enough to say 

 that most bee-keepers dread feeding, 



