ONE YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 105 



STIMULATIVE FEEDING. 



It is to be presumed that every colony has an abundance of reserve 

 stores in the hive, and that reserve should consist of ten or fifteen 

 pounds of sealed honey. If they are short of this amount, they should 

 be fed. After warm weather predominates it is no trouble to feed 

 bees, but until this occurs, but little if any feeding of syrup can safely 

 be done. The term "stimulative feeding" applies to feeding for 

 brood rearing, and is done at regular intervals during springtime, 

 when the bees are unable to gather honey on account of either cool 

 weather, or a shortage of nectar in the flowers so they cannot gather 

 honey. Queens invariably stop laying eggs and brood-rearing ceases 

 when the honey flow stops, and then again begin the rearing of brood 

 when the bees begin gathering honey. Now in stimulative feeding 

 we imitate a natural flow of honey, and if we feed thus at times when 

 the bees are idle, the queens keep right on laying eggs to their ut- 

 most capacity, governed of course by the strength of the colony. 



Food for bees should consist of the best grades of sugar ; granu- 

 lated sugar is the best, and perhaps the cheapest. To prepare syrup 

 for this purpose, add water to sugar, equal parts of each by measure, 

 and heat thoroughly, but do not boil it, but bring it nearly to the boil- 

 ing-point. It may be fed warm, but not hot. For stimulative feeding, 

 about half a pint to a strong colony is sufficient each and every day, 

 given during such times as the bees are idle, from the time warm 

 weather opens in spring, until the beginning of the natural honey flow 

 of the season. Colonies thus brought up to the beginning of the 

 honey harvest are fully twice as strong as those not so treated, and the 

 result is that these colonies will store hundreds of pounds of honey 

 while the others store tens. 



Various kinds of feeders are used for feeding bees. The best and 

 most simple, and a feeder that any boy can make, is made from a 

 block of soft wood filled with holes one or two inches in diameter put 

 nearly but not quite through the block, thus forming a trough, and 

 the partitions between the holes are footholds for the bees, and pre- 

 vent them from drowning in the syrup. This feeder may be made 

 just the size to fit on top of the hive, covering the entire top of same, 

 and a few holes in center of block put clear through for the bees to 

 come up to get the feed and then pass down again. This feeder 

 should be incased in an upper story added to the hive, with the lid 

 on same to confine the bees inside and also prevent other bees getting 

 in from the outside. The proper time to feed bees during the day is 

 very late in the evening, and as late as we can see to do the work. 

 Where many colonies are together it causes quite an uproar, and 

 sometimes when fed during the day it produces robbing, but is always 



