172 BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 



and for the sake of early swarming this is the most 

 important. This bounty should be continued, to the 

 amount of about a tablespoonful a day, till the bees 

 disregard it, which will be as soon as the flowers 

 afford a supply of honey." This is a much less 

 amount than I recommend, yet its effects seem to 

 have been very perceptible. 



The same author continues : " I have spoken of the 

 different extent to which food should be administered 

 in spring and autumn ; but circumstances may occur 

 in which the treatment of bees in spring should be 

 assimilated to that of autumn. Feburier gives some 

 striking instances of this. The weather in February, 

 1810, having been very mild, the bees about Ver- 

 sailles, in reliance upon its continuance, were in a 

 state of great forwardness with their brood ; but the 

 temperature afterward became cold, and continued 

 so, till the store of honey in some hives was exhausted, 

 and nearly so in all. Two neighbors of his adopted 

 opposite lines of conduct on this occasion : one fed 

 his bees liberally, the other not at all ; whilst Feb- 

 urier himself, with an ill-judged economy, adopted a 

 middle course. The result was remarkable and 

 highly instructive. The neighbor who fed not at 

 all lost three-fourths of his families : out of twenty- 

 two stocks Feburier lost two, the remainder swarmed 

 very late, and some of the swarms were very feeble, 

 insomuch that in the autumn he lost two more from 

 the ravages of the wax moth ; whilst the liberal feeder 

 saved all his old stocks, and his first swarms issued 

 so early as to be succeeded by several strong after- 



