FEEDING AND FEEDERS. 141 



must be reboiled with a little more vinegar. Instead of 

 vinegar, cream of tartar may be used, of which a quarter 

 of an ounce must be added to four pounds of sugar. 

 This food will at the present time cost about 2s. 8d. 

 per 14 pounds, or a little over 2d. per pound. 



Honey is, of course, the most natural food to give to 

 Bees, but sugar syrup answers equally well, and is far less 

 valuable ; and, unless the source from which the honey 

 comes is known to be pure, there is a danger of intro- 

 ducing with it " Foul-brood." Foreign honey is said to 

 be very often contaminated by this plague. Those 

 using frame hives, where the frames are interchangeable, 

 will often be able so to arrange their combs as to save 

 much trouble in feeding. Some hives have more honey 

 than they require, therefore can part with a comb or two 

 to their poorer neighbour, and thus the stores may be 

 equalized. 



POLLEN. 



There is another food that Bees, when breeding, cannot 

 do without, that is " Pollen " or " Bee Bread," which, with 

 honey, is masticated by the workers, who form with it a 

 kind of chyle, which is supplied as food of the larvae. 

 There is seldom any absolute necessity for the Bee-keeper 

 to trouble about providing pollen^ the Bees generally 

 having stored, or being able to gather, sufficient. But 

 the Americans and Germans have been in the habit of 

 supplying a substitute for this in meal. Dzierzon, early 

 in the spring, observed his Bees bringing home this 

 substance from a neighbouring mill before they could 

 procure a natural supply of pollen ; and so, not losing 

 the lesson, it became a common practice to supply the 



