52 



BEES FOE PLEASURE AND PEOFIT. 



should be bored in the cap of the bottle, and a square 

 hole should be cut in the quilt about an inch smaller than the 

 block, to which it should be nailed. About a quarter of a pint 

 of syrup should be placed in the feeder every night, but as the 

 spring advances the quantity may be increased to half a pint. 



Fig. 34. — Stimulative Feeder. 



Great care must he taken to cover up the feeder very warmly, 

 so that no heat may escape from the hive. The progress that 

 a stock thus stimulated will make in five or six weeks is 

 amazing. The syrup used for stimulation should be thin, 

 made with 3 lbs. of sugar to a quart of water. 



Supposing that at the beginning of March a hive still has 

 abundance of stores left over from the winter, instead of 

 feeding such a hive, we may with a sharp knife tincap some of 

 the honey on the outer combs with great advantage ; the bees 

 will then carry the honey to the brood nest and the effect will 

 be to stimulate brood rearing : a good patch of honey should 

 be unsealed on a warm day about once a week, but care must 

 be taken to commence feeding with syrup before the bees run 

 at all short of stores, otherwise a serious cheek will be given 

 to the production of brood, as the far-sighted bees, foreseeing 

 a scarcity of food, will refuse to add to the number of their 

 population when the means of supporting them runs low. 



Spreading the Brood. 



When the bees appear daily getting stronger from the 

 increasing quantities of brood hatching out, we may " spread 



