1907 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



97 



knead np several hundred 

 pounds of honey and sugar, so I 

 did most of it by proxy (Figs. 4, 

 5, (3), and each of these cakes 

 was molded on a lu'ead-making 

 board, and rolleil in pulverized 

 sugar until quite stiff. It was 

 an awful job in December, but 

 it was either this or lose the api- 

 ary; and of the two evils I 

 choose the lesser. 



RESULTS. 



After the colonies were fed 

 (remember this was the last of 

 December, with snow on the 

 ground, as the illustration 

 shows), I left them, intending 

 to open a couple of colonies |in 

 a few days to see how they were 

 making out, especially those fed 

 the "hard" candy made from 

 sugar and honey. About two 

 weeks after feeding. I returned 

 home from a trip; and when I 

 went out intcj the apiary I no- 

 ticed that something was radi- 

 cally wrong with the bees that 

 had been fed the honey and 

 sugar blocks — that is. the blocks 

 made from boiling honey and 

 sugar. Out of each of these cohmies ran a 

 stream of sticky half-melted candy, and in 

 front of each of the hives were hundreds of 

 dead sticky ]>ees; and on opening the hives I 

 found that the heat from the cluster had 

 caused the block of candy to soften and run, 

 the honey in it uiaking it sure to do so, and 

 thus those ten colonies were lost. Figs. 7 and 8. 



Fig. 6.— Kneaclinti 

 making board. 



the Good candy on a bread- 



Fig. .5.— Adding- enju-h pulverized sugar to malie a stiff dough 



The lesson I learned from this was that it 

 was a bad thing to mix the honey with the 

 boiling syrup for feed, for the colonies that 

 were fed the hard candy made from granu- 

 lated sugar alone with water were doing 

 nicely, and came through to spring in prime 

 condition. 



The colonies that were fed the big balls of 

 Good candy, made by mixing pulverized 

 teUgar and extracted honey, all did well, and 

 demonstrated, to my satisfaction at least, 

 that for feeding in winter nothing could. 

 equal it. 



Along the last of February it became nec- 

 essary to give each of these colonies another 

 lump of about 5 lbs., which carried them 

 over till fruit-bloom, and each of them built 

 up well with the coming of the early blos- 

 soms. I would frequently go out among the 

 l)ees in January and February and thrust my 

 hand down through the shavings and feel 

 how large the lump was, and thus I knew 

 when to give another, which I did the last 

 of February. 



Care must be taken to pack the bees good 

 and warm after giving the Good candy; and 

 if this is done a hive can be opened in the 

 dead of winter and the feed put in, if it is 

 (juickly closed and packed according to the 

 above directions. 



There is no reason why any colonies should 

 be lost when discovered short of stores in 

 t reezing weather, if the above directions are 

 i-arried out. The shortage of stores was ex- 

 plained; and had the writer not been away 

 all the fall, the syrup would again have been 

 fed; but as it was, the midwinter feed saved 

 the apiary. 



Rye, N. Y. 



[For several years back we have been 



