268 THE HIVE AND HONEY-BjiE. 



WTien bees first begin to fly in the Spring, it is well to 

 feed them a little, even when they have abundant stores, 

 as a small addition to their hoards eu corn-ages the pro- 

 duction of brood. Great caution, however, should be 

 used to prevent robbing, and as soon as forage abounds, 

 the feeding should be discontinued. If a colony is over- 

 fed, the bees wiU fill their brood-combs, so as to inter- 

 fere with the production of young, and thus the honey 

 given to them is worse than thrown away. 



The over-feeding of bees resembles, in its results, the 

 noxious influences under which too many children of the 

 lich are reared. Pampered and f^d to the fall, how often 

 does their wealth prove only a legacy of withering 

 curses, as, bankrupt in purse and character, they prema- 

 turely sink to dishonored graves. 



The prudent Apiarian will regard the feeding of bees 

 —the little given by way of encouragement excepted — 

 as an evil to be submitted to only when it cannot be 

 avoided, and will much prefer that they should obtain 

 their supplies in the manner so beautifully described by 

 him whose inimitable writings furnish us, on almost every 

 subject, with the happiest illustrations : 



" So work the honey bees, 

 Creatures that, by a rule in Nature, teach 

 The art of order to a peopled kingdom. 

 They have a king and officers of sorts. 

 Where some, like magistrates, correct at home , 

 Others, like merchants, venture trade abroad ; 

 Others, like soldiers, armed in their stings. 

 Make boot upon the Summer's Telvet buds ; - 

 Which pillage they, with merry march, bring homo 

 To the tent royal of their emperor, 

 Who, busied in his majesty, surveys 



Ingly the directions of Hyginus— whose writings are no longer extant— that thll 

 matter shoQld he most carefully (" dillffenUssime") attended to. 



