98 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Jan. 15 



killed the bee 



having a good many inquiries as to what 

 and how to feed colonies during winter in 

 cellar and outdoors, packed in chaff. Our 

 answer has always been, give to all such, 

 frames of sealed stores— nothing better, and 

 nothing else anywhere near so convenient. 

 Whenever practicable it is our practice to 

 lay aside a lot of these when honey comes in 

 in the season, and set them aside for emer- 

 gency purposes for winter use. But when 

 such combs are not available — or when, for 

 any reason, the bee-keeper has not provided 

 them in advance— he must give them some- 

 thing else. 



One can feed sugar syrup in the cellar, 

 and the bees will take 

 it down just the same 

 as they would out- 

 doors. What, then, is 

 the objection? It stirs 

 outdoor bees up to 

 activity, breaks up the 

 winter-nest, and, in the 

 case of cellared l)ees, 

 starts an uproar that 

 excites all the other 

 bees to a greater or 

 less extent in the cel- 

 lar, whether so fed or 

 not. The only thing, 

 then, is to giVe them 

 candy in some form 

 — some sort of food 

 that they can appro- 

 priate very slowly. For 

 this purpose we have 

 advised giving lumps 

 of Good candy made 

 by mixing powdered 

 sugar and honey into 

 a stiff" dough; and it 

 would seem, in view 

 of the report of Dr. ,, ,. .. ,. , . , . . 

 Lyon, that we were tom-board drowned.''"'' ''"' 



not far wrong. Our own 

 experiments have like- 

 wise shown that food so 

 l^repared will carry col- 

 onies through the winter 

 in good condition; al 

 though it must be clear- 

 ly understood that there 

 is nothing that is quite 

 equal to a natural win- 

 ter - nest, with sealed 

 stores of honey or syrup 

 immediately around and 

 bordering that nest. Es- 

 pecially is this true for 

 colonies wintered out- 

 doors. 



But some one, some 

 little time ago, com- 

 plained that the powder- 

 ed-sugar candy would 

 dry up, and that the 

 granules would drop 

 down Isetween the 

 frames and be wasted; 

 that at other times these 

 granules would be car- 

 ried out of the entrance, because without 

 water the bees would be unable to convert 

 them into food. 



Last winter we went to work making vari- 

 ous kinds of candy — some with varying per- 

 centages of granulated sugar and honey; 

 another with pure sugar and water, and the 

 Good candy, to which reference has ah'eady 

 been made. We consulted various candy- 

 men, who suggested that glucose would make 

 a more suitable candy; but knowing the oft- 

 en dangerous sulphites in that article, and 

 not desiring to encoi;rage the use of it by 

 any bee-keeper for any purpose, we did not 

 use any of it. Our candy-men then suggest- 



honey melted and 



jntaining honey not suitable. Bees on bot- 



