FEEDING. 165 



I differ from all apiarians who entertain such 

 views, and am bold to affirm, that feeding in a 

 proper manner, at certain seasons of the year (and 

 this varies in different localities), is the key to suc- 

 cessful and profitable bee-keeping in all sections of 

 the country, except where there is a continued suc- 

 cession and an abundant supply of honey-producing 

 flowers from early spring until frosts come in the 

 autumn. In making this statement, I do not confine 

 myself entirely to the mode of feeding just des- 

 ' cribed, but would feed by cultivating large quantities 

 of grain, plants or vegetables, to bloom at a time 

 when little, if any, honey is accessible to the bees. 

 This can be done very readily and profitably. The 

 matter is discussed at length under the head of bee- 

 pasturage, Chap. IX. 



I do not wish it to be understood that I am in 

 favor of feeding bees with syrup, or even an inferior 

 article of honey, in such large quantities as to cause 

 them to store it in the honey boxes as spare honey 

 for market; this course would be simply perpetrating 

 a fraud on the purchaser,, as it is well known that 

 bees merely gather honey and store it without in any 

 way changing its qualitiy ; whatever substance is fed, 

 remains the same, although it may be stored in the 

 very whitest waxen cells. My plan is to feed them 

 from the close of honey gathering from the fruit tree 

 flowers (which in this latitude, 42 degrees North, 

 occurs from the tenth to the twentieth of May), 

 until the white clover comes in bloom, which is 

 generally about the tenth of June ; in proportion to 



