248 THE BEE-KEEPER’S MANUAL. 
this continued till the opening blossoms supplied 
the natural article. Some hives consumed as much 
as two pounds. Subsequent experimentalists at 
home have used the flour of wheat, or other 
grain, with success; Mr. Cheshire specially recom- 
mends pea-flour. The knowledge that the collection 
of pollen and the need of water by the bees 
are simultaneous, led observers a step further, and 
they made a rule of giving a supply of both these 
essentials at the same time. As this assistance has 
been afforded as early as January, it would seem 
necessary, in our climate, to place both articles in 
some accessible part within the hive. In the absence 
of any better provision, wet sponge or moss has been 
found to answer for the water; and old combs or 
wooden trays may serve, with cottage hives, as 
receptacles for the meal. With the movable frames, 
of course, the combs can be extracted and filled, for 
the meal will not be needed till it is both safe and 
salutary to open the hive. 
At a meeting of the British Bee-Keepers’ Associa- 
tion, in October, 1879, Mr. Cheshire made known a 
method of procedure adopted by himself, by which the 
meal appears to be supplied on a greatly improved 
plan. Recollecting that when bees stored pollen in 
their cells they covered it over with honey, he 
thought of giving them the two articles—that is to 
say, their substitutes, pea-flour and syrup—in a 
mixture already prepared. The meal was accord- 
ingly cast into the syrup, which, of course, it at 
once soaked up, and, when in a consistency that 
would just admit of being held upon a knife, it was 
