Reasons for Feeding. 225, 
CHAPTER VIII. 
FEEDING AND FEEDERS. 
As already stated, it is only when the worker-bees are 
storing that the queen deposits to the full extent of her 
capability, and that brood-rearing is at its height. In fact, 
when storing ceases, general indolence characterizes the 
hive. This is peculiarly true of the German and Italian 
races of bees. Hence, if we would achieve the best success, 
we must keep the workers active, even before gathering 
commences, as also in the interims of honey secretion by 
the flowers; and to do this we must feed sparingly before 
the advent of bloom in the spring, and whenever the 
workers are forced to idleness during any part of the season, 
by the absence of honey-producing flowers. For a number 
of years, I have tried experiments in this direction by feed- 
ing a portion of my colonies early in the season, and in the 
intervals of honey-gathering, and always with marked 
results in favor of the practice. Of course it is not well to 
feed unless we expect a honey harvest the same season. 
Thus I would not feed after clover or bass-wood bloom 
unless I expected a fall harvest. 
Mr. D. A. Jones has truly said that if feeding in the 
autumn be deferred too long, till the queen ceases laying, 
it often takes much time to get her to resume, and not 
infrequently we fail entirely. 
Every apiarist, whether novice or veteran, will receive 
ample reward by practicing stimulative feeding early in 
the season; then his hive at the dawn of the white clover 
era will be redundant with bees, well filled with brood, 
and in just the trim to receive a bountiful harvest of this 
most delicious nectar. 
Feeding, too, is often necessary to secure sufficient stores 
for winter—for no apiarist, worthy of the name, will suffer 
his faithful, willing subjects to starve, when so little care 
and expense will prevent it. 
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