and its Economic Management. 355 
predisposes bees to disease, is but a phantom that exists 
in their own imagination only. 
Where disease has been prevalent in a given locality, it 
has been shown over and over again that the only stocks 
escaping have been those fed with syrup during the 
Autumn. On the other hand, syrup feeding gives one 
the opportunity of adding a germicide to the bees’ Winter 
food ; and it has been then demonstrated that the stocks 
to become first affected with the Isle of Wight disease, or 
those that died out during Winter from the same malady, 
have been such as were left entirely upon natural stores, 
the owner thinking the latter quite satisfactory. 
The Author feeds refined beet sugar by the ton in his 
queen-rearing apiary ; and does this practice, think you, 
cause any deterioration in his stock? Let the reader judge 
for himself when I tell him that starting as a nucleus in 
Spring the stock as it developed yielded 170 lbs. of honey 
the same year; another, queen from the Author’s apiary 
gave 357 lbs. of honey from one stock; others during the 
rather poor season of 1912 gave from 100 lbs. to 185 lbs. 
to the colony. . 
After the 1912 season, one of the great daily papers had 
a startling heading, “Sun-starved Bees,” and gave a doleful 
account of bees dying all over the country because there 
had been so little sun! This was a calamity that the 
Author could not realize, as such a situation had never 
come under his notice and could only occur through 
negligence. His own bees were snugly tucked away 
between sugar-stored combs; and even normal deaths. 
appeared to be less than usual. 
Although August of that year was persistently wet, 
and September unusually cold, the bees consequently 
discontinuing the production of young earlier than usual, 
the whole apiary roused up and the stocks developed 
