240 VARTOUS KINDS OF FOOD. 



dysentery, and set their hoarded food in a state of fermenta- 

 tion. 



Lombard recommends brandy to be mixed with the food, 

 in the proportion of half a quartern to a quart of the liquid. 

 Du Humel thinking to improve upon the recommendation 

 of Lombard, suggests the admixture of some rum. We 

 advise our English bee keepers to drink the brandy and the 

 rum, and to give their bees nothing but sugar and ale. 



M. Reich of Sablath makes use of the following substitute 

 for honey: "Take a certain quantity of pears, the sweetest 

 that can be procured, and having baked them in an oven, 

 with seven or eight pints of water, let them boil until reduced 

 to about six pints, and the liquid has attained the con- 

 sistency of syrup, similar to that of honey. The mixture must 

 be filtered, and a small quantity of sugar added to it. M. 

 Reich affirms that this mixture has the undoubted property 

 of invigorating and strengthening the bees. Huber recom- 

 mends a mixture very similar to it, with the exception that 

 the pears are not previously baked. 



It is scarcely possible to form a correct calculation of the 

 quantity of honey which a hive will consume during the 

 winter, as it depends upon so many contingencies, which 

 set all calculation at defiance. The consumption of food 

 depends in the first place on the strength or weakness of the 

 population ; secondly, on the mildness or severity of the 

 season ; and, consequently, no positive data can be laid down 

 by which the consumption of a hive can be ascertained. 

 Hunter made a calculation, which is inserted in the Philoso- 

 phical Transactions, that from the 8th of October to the 9th 

 of February, the bees consumed within one ounce of four 

 pounds. This hive was, however, not a very populous one, 

 and he therefore draws the conclusion that a well-peopled 

 hive consumes about a pound a month. But here the varia- 

 tion of the weather may intervene, and the consumption of 



