3a FEEDIKG. 



from whence it can be either skimmed when hot, or lifted 

 in a solid cake when cold. 



In extracting wax, care must be taken not to allow it to 

 get into the fire, or a conflagration may be the result. 



CHAPTER VII. 



A spell of bad weather will often make it necessary to 

 feed bees in order to save them from starvation, and very 

 frequently, at the end of the season, they are stripped so 

 closely of their honey that artificial food is necessary to tide 

 them over the winter. The best and safest way to give food 

 is by means of the dummy feeder already referred to, but in 

 case it is not available, the pan feeder will do very well. In 

 order to use the latter, a hole must be cut through the quilt 

 about four inches from the centre so that it can be closed 

 when desired by simply reversing one of the layers of carpet. 

 If, owing to bad weather or any other cause, the bees are for 

 any considerable time unable to gather honey during the 

 spring or summer months, the queen stops laying and the 

 production of brood is of course checked. Later on, the 

 bees devour the food placed in the cells with the grubs or 

 larvae, and the maturing bees are torn from their cells and 

 thrown out of the hive, often in sufficient numbers to form 

 a considerable heap under the flightboard. When this is 

 seen, food must be given at once, but, in any case, the stock 

 will have been thrown back for weeks, if not for the entire 

 season. For use in spring and summer, food can be pre- 

 pared by pouring a quart of boiling water on three pounds 

 of good white sugar, so as to make a thin syrup. For autumn 

 use the food must be made very much thicker by boiling the 

 syrup so as to evaporate as much water as possible from it. 

 To provision a stock for the winter (supposing there is no 

 other food in the hive) about twenty-five pounds of food are 

 required, which can be prepared by boiling sixteen pounds 

 of sugar in five quarts of water, adding a teaspoonful of salt 

 while boiling. Many tweJteepers provision their stocks for 

 winter with a specially-prepared sugar-barley, known in the 

 trade as plain sugar-barley, which costs about sixpence a 



