64 AN EASY METHOD 



be diluted with water very little, when fed in the spring, to 

 facilitate perspiration. Poor honey may be given them in the 

 spring, at the time when they can obtain and provide them- 

 selves with Jliedioine, which they only best understand. 



Sugar dissolved, or molasses, may be used in the spring to 

 some advantage, but ought not to be substituted for honey, 

 when it can be obtained. As many experiments in feeding 

 Dees have been tried since the publication of our previous 

 editions, it may be proper to continue these remarks some 

 further ; and as many persons in the country have endeavored, 

 for a few years past, to make great speculations and enormous 

 profits, by feeding bees with cheap honey, the principles of 

 these great profits should be better understood. 



Some persons have gone so far as to incorporate a small 

 proportion of the poorest and cheapest kind of West India 

 honey with a larger proportion of water, and a quantity of 

 the poorer quality of sugar, with a little yeast, and after the 

 bees had passed it through, their laboratory, it was sold in 

 market, at high prices. We would not depreciate any im- 

 provement, merely because it had reached beyond all our re- 

 searches, especially in these days of " steam and electricity," 

 but the public should be cautioned against all approaching 

 danger. We are inclined to believe that a substance which 

 may, perhaps, be improperly called honey, may be made in 

 this way, by incorporating pure Northern honey with loaf 

 sugar, but it will cost so much, in our estimation, that market 

 prices wOl by no means cover the expense. 



Bees may be fed on cheap West India honey to great ad- 

 vantage, as already remarked ; but if they are allowed to 

 carry it into the drawers or boxes for sale, we believe it is a 

 fraud upon the purchaser. Its quality is not materially 

 changed by any labor the bees may bestow upon it. If it 

 is dirty, they will cleanse it, and make wax of it sufficient to 



