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162 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



For the American Beo JoumaL 



What Shall I Feed My Bees ? 



ARTHUR TODD. 



This question, as spring opens, will 

 interest many bee-keepers. Some will 

 simply seek to feed to keep alive those 

 colonies that have not stored enougli 

 to last until plenty reigns. Others will 

 feed to stimulate the mother bee to 

 active egg-laying, and so, early in the 

 season, have strong colonies. It is to 

 the latter that these remarks are more 

 particularly addressed. I purpose tak- 

 ing it for granted that those I address 

 concede the principle of supplying 

 their bees a spring feed of .some sort, 

 with a view to practising this cardinal 

 virtue in bee-keeping, viz. : " Keep 

 yonr colonies strong." I purpose to 

 point out certain substances that may 

 be employed, and the manner of so 

 employing them, that remarkable re- 

 sults may be obtained by those who 

 chose to give the matter of intensive 

 feeding their careful attention, this 

 spring. 



This spring feeding is a sort of mild 

 deception, played upon the mother 

 bee, tor feeding being once regularly 

 entered upon, the bees get daily more 

 active, and, literally, force food on the 

 mother bee, making her believe that 

 the time to be " up and doing " has 

 arrived ; a little earlier than usual, 

 she may think, but still it has come. 

 So, as long as the workers keep on as- 

 suring her that spring has arrived, she 

 deposits the eggs which are to be the 

 groundwork of the success of her 

 colony. 



Now comes in the question, " what 

 shall I feed that shall induce those 

 worker bees to overfeed the mother 

 bee, and force from her a supply of 

 eggs, equal, if not greater than it 

 would be at the most favorable natural 

 period of the year. As spring opens, 

 we see carried into the hives, first, 

 that substance called pollen, obtained 

 from (lowers. It is now known that 

 bees eat pollen, and, moreover, feed it 

 to the young, growing bees, hence its 

 old name of " bee-bread." That pol- 

 len is eaten, the microscope proves, in 

 the hands of a Scotch authority, who 

 writes: " When I examined the ex- 

 crements of bees, even when no brood 

 was being raised, I found them largely 

 consisting of the indigestible husks of 

 the pollen grains." 



Now, food is of various kinds, but 

 all the constituents of food must be 

 capable of assimilation by the animal 

 eating thereof, and each constituent 

 must go to repair a delinite waste in 

 the animal organism. In animal or- 

 ganisms we have three distinct classes 

 of substances, viz. : mineral, non-ni- 

 trogenous, and nitrogenous. All foods 

 may be classified as follows : Mineral 

 — carbonaceous or respiratory (gene- 

 rally called heat givers) ; nitrogenous 

 or iiutritious (generally called fiesh- 

 formers). 



All foods are principally composed 

 of the ctiHuiical elements known as 

 carbon, oxygen, hydrogen and nitro- 

 gen, combined in varying proportions. 

 Under the head of mineral we class 

 water, salts and ashes. A large pro- 

 portion of all animals is water, and of 

 this element of food a supply is re- 

 quired to replace loss by evaporation, 

 and for the changes food undergoes in 

 the body, while being dissolved, and 

 made assimilalile. What we know as 

 salt, and the salts of various minenils, 

 are of great service in facilitating the 

 absorption of water, and building up 

 the framework of the body. 



The heat given from the non-nitro- 

 genous portions of animals — starch, 

 sugar and fat, are examples. These 

 are highly carbonneeous, and, when 

 taken into the animal system, there 

 unite with the oxygen, "and a slow 

 combustion takes place, evolving what 

 is known as " animal heat ; " portions 

 of these carbonaceous materials un- 

 dergo various changes and are laid up 

 in a solid form in the sliape of fat in 

 the animal body. 



The flesh formers, or "nutritives," 

 from the nitrogenous portions of ani- 

 mals — albumen, tibrine and caseine are 

 examples. These all contain nitrogen, 

 the element absolutely necessary to 

 the growth and formation of organic 

 tissues, by which all muscular force 

 and nervous force is brought into ac- 

 tion — bones, hair, skin, nerves, all 

 require nitrogen to form them, hence 

 the term " nitrogenous food." 



Albumen is req\iired by all egg-lay- 

 ing animals. Albumen is that form 

 of nitrogenous food that goes to form 

 nerve substance, and it is through 

 and by the nerves, all animals are put 

 in relation with the world exterior to 

 themselves. By the nerves the senses 

 are governed. Fibrine is found in the 

 blood of all animals, and itconstitntes 

 the whole of their muscular tissue. 

 Locomotion, whether by leg or wing, 

 must spring from the presence of 

 fibrine. Caseine is tliat substance 

 which we separate from milk under 

 the name of cheese, and is an essential 

 of food. These elements of food are 

 all to be found in the vegetable world, 

 and it is plants that have the power of 

 converting inanimate mineral sub- 

 stances into the necessary vital pro- 

 ducts of the whole organic kingdom. 



At the opening of the year, bees 

 have to provide for the animal heat 

 necessary in the hive, the albumen 

 necessary for eggs, and the growth of 

 animal tissue in the young larvce and 

 bees. Water (often impregnated with 

 salts of the various minerals) is gen- 

 eraily in abundance and easily ob- 

 tained. To the vegetable world the 

 bees go toobtain those heat givers and 

 (iesh formers I have mentioned. 



Let us return to pollen and analyze 

 it. Analyzed, it shows, in 100 parts : 



Water 12.7-t 



Ash 2.72 



Albumenoids 21 .75 



Sugar 26.20 



Nitrogenous organic substances. 36.59 



By this we see, pollen eont;iins a 

 portion of sugar essential to the 

 production of animal heat, but the 

 albumen and nitrogenous organic sub- 

 stances are there in large quantities. 



Egg substance being composed of 

 one-seventh pure albumen, contains,a3 

 already shown, "nitrogen," and the 

 poor, mother bee, from whom we want 

 to force some 3,000 eggs per day, must 

 be fed nitrogen in ample quantity. 

 From these eggs come the larvK and 

 bees, all in a state of growth demand- 

 ing supplies of Hesh-forming and 

 nerve-forming food. These albumen- 

 oids and nitrogenous, organic sub- 

 stances, shown to bo. contained so 

 largely in the first food tlie bee seeks 

 in spring, are, as you can now readily 

 understand, the most important to 

 supply. "Nitrogenous food," there- 

 fore, is the answer to the question, 

 " what shall 1 feed ? " 



The seeds of plants contain, in a 

 varying degree, these flesh-forming or 

 nitrogenous foods, and this is why 

 artificial pollen, in the shape of pea, 

 rye, barley, oat and wheat flour, has 

 long been used in the open air as a 

 spring stimulant, only, however,avail- 

 able on open, sunny days. Compara- 

 tively few have known the actual 

 reasons why bees will take one kind 

 of flour in preference to anothei-. It 

 is simply because there is, in some, a 

 higher percentage of the nitrogenous 

 element than in others. Rainy and 

 windy springs, which prevented the 

 bees from getting to the artificial pol- 

 len, gave stimulus to invention, and. 

 at last, it came to be fed inside the 

 hives, where brood-rearing could go 

 on uninterruptedly, in all weathers. 



The Germans long ago decided that 

 there is an advantage to be gained by 

 speculative, nitrogenous feeding of 

 bees in the interior of the hive. In 

 the spring of 1878, a German reports 

 having obtained the most favorable 

 results, and stated, that in his neisjli- 

 borhood, such was the miseraule 

 weather (cold winds, etc.) that not ten 

 per cent, of swarms were reported, 

 yet those who, including himself, fed 

 the bees with flour inside the hives, 

 increased their colonies .50 and 100 per 

 cent, and had very good harvests of 

 honey. Another renowned bee-keeper 

 reported like good results. Scotch 

 bee-keepers have long been stimulat- 

 ing in spring, by means of cakes, com- 

 posed of rye flour, honey, etc. The 

 composition of these cakes having 

 been communicated to the Swiss Bee- 

 Keepers' Society, that Society went to 

 work in a very practical manner, got 

 a baker to make the cakes, and ever 

 since they have regularly advertised 

 in the Swiss bee paper. " cakes of 

 sugar, with or without flour." 



In Gleaniix/s, p. 249 (1882), we read : 

 " A iieri' substitute for pollen — cotton seed 

 meal. — We have made a discovery 

 which may be new ; it is in furnishing 

 bees material for pollen, tliey leave 

 oatmeal, rye meal, and everything 

 else for cotton seed meal, and they acr 

 as though they were perfectly happy 

 with it, rolling and tumbling over each 

 other in their eagerness. It may be 

 the sweetness of the cotton seed meal 

 that makes it so attractive to the 

 little beauties. Please give us your 

 opinion.— II. A. Williams & Co." 



Again in Gleanings, page 302 (1882). 

 "' Cotton s(ed meal again. — My bees 

 prefer cotton seed meal to any other 

 substitute for pollen.— D. S. Hall." 



