Reasons for Feeding. 225 



CHAPTER VIII. 



Feeding and Feeders, 



As already stated, it is only when tlie worker-bees are 

 storing that the queen deposits to the full extent of her 

 capability, and that brood-rearing is at its height. In fact, 

 when storing ceases, general indolence characterizes the 

 hive. This is peculiarly true of the German and Italian 

 races of bees. Hence, if we would achieve the best success, 

 we must keep the workers active, even before gathering 

 commences, as also in the interims of honey secretion by 

 the flowers; and to do this we must feed sparingly before 

 the advent of bloom in the spring, and whenever the 

 workers are forced to idleness during any part of the season, 

 by the absence of honey -producing flowers. For a number 

 of years, I have tried experiments in this direction by feed- 

 ing a portion of my colonies early in the season, and in the 

 intervals of honey-gathering, and always with marked 

 results in favor of the practice. Of course it is not well to 

 feed unless we expect a honey harvest the same season. 

 Thus I would not feed after clover or bass-wood bloom 

 unless I expected a fall harvest. 



Mr. D. A. Jones has truly said that if feeding in the 

 autumn be deferred too long, till the queen ceases laying, 

 it often takes much time to get her to resume, and not 

 infrequently we fail entirely. 



Every apiarist, whether novice or veteran, will receive 

 ample reward by practicing stimulative feeding early in 

 the season; then his hive at the dawn of the white clover 

 era will be redundant with bees, well filled with brood, 

 and in just the trim to receive a bountiful harvest of this 

 most delicious nectar. 



Feeding, too, is often necessary to secure sufficient stores 

 for winter — for no apiarist, worthy of the name, will suffer 

 his faithful, willing subjects to starve, when so little care 

 and expense will prevent it. 



