W PEAOTICAL BEE-KEEPINS. 



of slow and regular feeding is remarkable. Food comes in slowly, it ia 

 true, but the supply is constant ; day by day the store increases, and 

 the thrifty little insects come at last to trust in what appears a perennial 

 spring. The natural result is the deposit of eggs, and the grubs in due 

 course quickly consume the sugar supplied, so that we positively convert 

 our food into bees. Two cautions are here needed : let. Do not use over 

 large bottles for the syrup to be filled at long intervals, as some have 

 recommended. Air expands and contracts greatly as its temperature 

 rises and falls, aud that standing above the syrup in a capacious bottle 

 increasing in volume as the morning warms, will pour our food down 

 over the bees, to their great injury, especially if the night has been cold. 

 A bee-keeper of our acquaintance recently lost a stock from this cause. 

 If a bottle half full be placed on the feed hole of a hive without , bees, 

 a few days will empty it, for the reason previously given. 2nd. 

 Bees will often devour whole batches of eggs deposited under the 

 stimulus of continuous feeding, if left without supplies even for a few 

 hours. This is more particularly true when the weather is such as to 

 confine them wholly to their hives. Taking this hint, those who 

 really love their bees will feed them after thoroughly bad days aE 

 through the spring ; and to the cottager who desires profit no invest- 

 ment would yield so large a return as this. 



The principles already indicated as guiding "spring stimulation" 

 apply to autumn feeding. Normally a hive should continue breeding, 

 though with relaxed energy, untU the dropping temperature reduces all 

 to a condition of quiescence, and then the youngest inhabitants, with 

 the initial energy of a new life, pass on at once into the hybemating 

 condition, which conserves their forces almost unimpaired untU the 

 return of spring, for the life of a bee seems not measurable by length of 

 days, being rather a constant quantity of nerve force which may be 

 paid out rapidly or slowly ; hence during the summer the workers' powers 

 are worn out during five or six weeks, while from autumn to spring eight 

 months are required to exhaust them. Prom this it will appear that an 

 early failure of the honey harvest, stopping breeding prematurely, will 

 deprive the hive of its main hope for the spring — comparatively fresh bees. 

 These may be obtained by providing that stimulus — food — ^which nature 

 fails to supply. But supply regularly and slowly, not fitfully, and 

 breeding will be continued ; and, if it be so desired, comb built long after 

 the ordinary period. Our experiments upon this matter have been given 

 at length in the columns of the Country. The result was In short to 

 build up stocks from mere handfuls of bees, and keep them breeding 

 freely and building worker comb far into the month of November. 



If, however, our object be to supply that store which is needed to carry 

 the stock through the winter, syrup ma,y be given rapidly; but this, 

 although made as before described, must not contain less than 51b. loaf 



