FEEDERS AND FEEDING. 135 



before. If made strong enough, this little instrument 

 will also be found useful as a scraper to clean floor 

 boards, supers, &c. 



Feeding. — Having explained the means by which 

 food may be administered to Bees, I will now say 

 when, and in what quantity, it should be given. At the 

 time a swarm issues, the weather is generally fine ; but 

 it sometimes happens a change takes place, and the 

 swarm having no stores, and not being able to gather 

 any, of necessity suffers. Such a contingency happen- 

 ing, the prudent and merciful Bee-keeper will give food 

 at once, not too fast, say half a pint of syrup per diem ; 

 if a superfluity be given, ^the swarm will occasionally 

 construct Drone combs to store it in, which is not desir- 

 able. Bees, when they swarm, seem filled with an 

 uncontrollable impulse to build combs ; this is a neces- 

 sity of their future existence, and it is of the utmost 

 importance that the impulse should be fostered and 

 encouraged. The Queen cannot, of course, lay an egg 

 without a cell to put it in, and as she is capable at this 

 time of laying 2000 or 3000 each day, the waste to 

 their owners will be easily seen, should all these embryo 

 Bees be lost. Old stocks in the spring have their stores 

 at the lowest ebb ; the winter's consumption has not 

 been made good ; and unless the prudent insects find 

 food is coming into the hive, no great amount of breed- 

 ing will take place. Of course the earlier Bees breed, 

 the sooner they will swarm or store in supers ; and in a 

 great measure breeding may be induced at the will of 

 the Bee-master. As soon as the weather will allow in 

 the spring, every stock should be examined, and if 

 found deficient in food, it must be administered. In 

 cold, damp weather, too much syrup is not good ; there 

 is no objection to sufficient being given for daily 



