64 THE APIAEY; OE, 



should be made up by artificial food. It is not wise to defer doing 

 this until later in the season, because it is important that when the 

 food is placed in the cells, the bees should seal it up, and a tolerably 

 warm temperature is required to enable them to secrete the wax for 

 the delicately formed lids of the cells. If the food remain unsealed, 

 there is danger of its turning sour and thereby causing disease 

 among the bees. It is not well to feed in mid-winter or when the 

 weather is very cold. Bees at such times consume but little food, 

 being in a state of torpor, from which it is better not to arouse them. 

 A little food in the spring stimulates the queen to lay more 

 abundantly, for bees are provident, and do not rear the young so 

 rapidly when the supplies are short. In this particular the intelli- 

 gence of bees is very striking; they have needed no Malthus to 

 teach them that the means of subsistence must regulate the increase 

 of a prosperous population : 



"The prescient female rears the tender brood 

 In strict proportion to the hoarded food." — ^Evans. 



Judgment has, however, to be exercised by the apiarian in giving 

 food, for it is quite possible to do mischief hy over feeding. The 

 bees when over-fed will fill so many of the combs with honey that 

 the queen in the early spring cannot find empty cells in which to 

 deposit her eggs, and by this means the progress of the hive is much 

 retarded, a result that should be guarded against. 



The following directions will show how the bottle feeder is to 

 be used : — Fill the bottle with liquid food, place the net fixed on 

 with an India-rubber band over the mouth, place the block over the 

 hole of the stock hive, invert the bottle, the neck resting within the 

 hole in the block ; the bees will put their proboscises through the 

 perforations and imbibe the food, thus causing the bottle to act on 

 the principle of a fountain. The bottle bsing glass, it is easy to 

 see when the food is consumed. The piece of perforated zinc is 

 for the purpose of preventing the bees from clinging to the net, 

 or escaping from the hive when the bottle is taken away for the 

 purpose of refilling. A very good syrup for bees may be made by 

 boiling 6 lbs. of honey with 2 lbs. of water for a few minutes j or 

 loaf sugar, in the proportion of 3 lbs. to 2 lbs. of water, answers 

 very well when honey is not to be obtained. 



