34 PEARCE METHOD OF BEE-KEEPING 



not think of working with them. I looked through a light 

 colony the 15th of March and saw that they had a queen and 

 brood, but I would not have thought of this if they had been 

 outside, so I feel sure if our bee keepers will carefully weigh 

 the advantages and disadvantages of these three prominent 

 ways of keeping our bees, they must become convinced of 

 the vast superiority of building an inexpensive shelter for 

 the bees where they are safe at all times from storms and 

 marauders, and where you can examine them at any time 

 and keep the entrances of the hives open at all times from 

 within and without, which is so very important for the well- 

 being of the bees. And where the bees can remain wmter 

 and summer, no lugging up or down stairs twice a year, no 

 packing and unpacking fall and spring, nor trouble and 

 annoyance with double-walled hives during the working sea- 

 son. I feel sure if you reflect on these things, you will 

 wonder that we all have not housed our bees before instead 

 of keeping them in the different ways that we have, sub- 

 jected to so much uncertainty, annoyance and inconvenience. 



CHAPTER XIV 

 Feed, Feeders and Feeding Bees. 



There have been a great many devices made for feeding 

 bees, and I have tried quite a number of them, and while I 

 would not want to be discourteous to any, I would like to tell 

 something about them and the one I like best and why. 



Before we can feed anything intelligently, we have first 

 to understand how that being takes its food. For instance, 

 if we were going to feed a giraffe, we would not want to place 

 its food down near its shoulders as you would feed a man or 

 other short-necked animal, for if we did, it would probably 

 starve to death, but if we put its food away up where none 

 of these other animals could reach it, then it could get along 

 very well and would have a monopoly of the food because 

 no other animal could reach it. Likewise with the bees, 

 they take their food from above, like the giraffe, but not in 

 so marked a degree, and to feed them intelligently, we have 

 to understand this fact. The bees always store their food 

 above them, and that would prove where they expect to feed 

 during the winter. In the late fall in our climate, the bees 

 drop down to the bottom of the hive or tree and prepare for 

 the winter. They cluster in a round mass between the combs, 

 in empty combs where the brood was last, hatched out, but 

 if all frames are full, they first eat .out the honey in the 

 cluster or this ball of bees as we call them, because if that 

 was left there, it would keep the warmth from passing from 

 one division to the other. Then as colder weather approaches 



