CHAPTER XI. 



OF FEEDING BEES. 



Enough has been written by other authors on the importance of feed- 

 ing bees, to render it unnecessary for me to detain the reader with 

 any observations of my own in recommendation of it. Suffice it to 

 say, that no person deserves to succeed as an apiarian, who, in these 

 days, neglects, from whatever cause, to establish his stocks in sufficient 

 wealth in autumn, or to supply them in spring with enough food to 

 remove all danger of their perishing from starvation. 



I have some few remarks to make, however, respecting the manner 

 and time of feeding, the food to be used, and the vessels in which it 

 should be given. 



In the first place, where it can lie done, I have no doubt that top- 

 feeding is greatly to be preferred to every other method. To those 

 who have holes at the top of their hives, the process of feeding be- 

 comes very simple indeed, especially in the case of box hives in a bee 

 house or window apiary. Here the apiator may feed his bees at any 

 time, whereas in the open air, the food can be supplied only at night, 

 owing to the perpetual annoyance from stranger bees or wasps, who, 

 being quick of scent, in the autumn, especially at a season when little 

 honey is to be found in the woods or fields, will crowd around the 

 hives that are being fed, with surprising pertinacity. 



Mr. Nutt's plan, (namely, feeding in drawers beneath the bottom 

 boards,) however well it may answer in warm weather; that is, when the 

 external temperature averages from 50° to 60° P., is wholly ineffec- 

 tual under other circumstances. The bees will descend unwillingly, 

 and at imminent danger of their lives. The same objection holds against 

 the use of scoops of elder wood, or plates thrust underneath the hive 

 itself upon the board. But if the hole at the top of the hive, by which 

 the bees have access to the feeder, be in the centre — or where the bees 

 chiefly congregate — they will at all times eat more than others, and 



