a-KEATMENT OJP SWAKMS AND STOCKS. 61 



sugar to a quart of water, so that little evaporation will be required 

 before sealing. If quantities of thin food be given quickly late in the 

 year, as some advise, the effect must be most prejudicial, and evidence 

 is not wanting that dysentery is directly produced by it. 



Water is an essential for bees. Wild ones are said never to be found 

 but in the neighbourhood of some pond, brook, or spring. New honey 

 is very dilute, containing aU the water necessary for producing with 

 pollen the chyle upon which the worker feeds the advancing grub (see 

 p. 5), but it is never sealed until much inspissated. When brood has to 

 be raised upon store, water is obviously required, and at such times the 

 anxious workers may be seen flying in search of it, even when the 

 temperature is SD low as to make the death of many certain. This 

 explains the philosophy of giving thin syrup in the spring, as previously 

 advised. Unless some source render the arrangement unnecessary, place 

 near the hives trays provided with wooden floats bored with holes, 

 through which the bees may sip without danger of drowning. These 

 will only be frequented during dry weather and when honey is scarce ; 

 but do not provide drink and when your bees have learned to trust to it 

 forget its continuance. 



Pollen, Natv/ral and Artificial. — ^Natural pollen (the flesh-forming 

 while honey is the heat-giving food of bees) is the dust gathered 

 from the anthers of flowers and packed by the gatherers on the 

 concave face of the tibia of the hind leg, where it may be seen in 

 little rounded pellets of varying hues as the loaded labourers regain 

 the door of home. The bee, having fixed herself upon a cell, 

 pushes her burden from its position by the fore legs and then rams 

 it down with the head. The cell having received its complement, 

 a little honey is placed over it, and the waxen air-tight sealing added, 

 which renders fermentation impossible. Mr. Pettigrew, whose practice 

 is more accurate than his philosophy, tells us that "bees do not eat 

 pollen. They die of starvation, with a superabundance of it in their 

 hives;" but the latter fact does not prove the former statement. A man 

 would die of starvation if fed only on Liebig's extract of meat on the one 

 hand, or on arrowroot on the other ; but by uniting the two he has a 

 sufficient diet. So with the bee. With pollen only they would quickly 

 die of cold ; with honey alone tissue is soon exhausted and vital energy 

 slowly but surely extinguished. The physiologist perfectly understands 

 this matter, and has shown long since that a true proportion of the 

 essential food of animals — flesh and heat formers — is necessary in order 

 that the largest results may be obtained by any given consumption o^ 

 them. 



Artificial Pollen has been given by American bee-keepers, and 

 latterly by many in England. The idea originated with the great 

 observer Dzierzon. He noticed, very early one spring,' that his 



