62 AN EASY METHOD 



leaving a part of the sixth side open, to admit the bees from 

 their common entrance. Its floor should be level, when 

 hitched on the front of the hive. It should be of sufficient 

 depth to lay in comb, filled with honey. If strained honey 

 without comb is used for feeding, a float, perforated with 

 many holes, should be laid over the whole of the honey in 

 the box, or feeder, so as to prevent any of the bees from 

 drowning ; and at the same time, this float should be so 

 thin as to enable them to reach the honey. It should be 

 made so small, that it will settle down as fast as the honey 

 is removed by the bees. There should be a tube inserted 

 vertically through the float, and made fast to it, extending 

 upward through the top of the box, in such a manner as to 

 receive the honey from a tunnel, and convey the same 

 directly under the float. A light of glass should be placed 

 in the back side, and a door to close and darken it at plea- 

 sure. 



Great profits may be made in large apiaries by feeding 

 cheap honey, (I mean honey that is made entirely by the 

 bees, and is a production of the West India Islands and 

 other places, w'here the flowers yield honey of a rank, un- 

 pleasant taste,) in the fall. The bees, being compelled to 

 carry up and deposit the cheap honey in^^the lower apart- 

 ment of the hive, (and they will live on that as well as any 

 other, if it is pure honey,) their owner can compel them to 

 carry as much pure white clover honey into the drawers 

 the following season, there being no room to store it below. 

 Swarms will feed out and deposit ten pounds of honey a 

 day and night each hive, in warm weather. Small drawers 

 cannot be depended on as feeders, except in the spring and 

 summer, unless they are kept so warm that the vapor of the 

 bees will not freeze in them. It would be extremely hazard- 

 ous for the bees to enter a frosty drawer. They will sooner 



