8o 



Maize Ensilage. 



placed, some in the hives, and some at different distances 

 from them, on September 7th, when there was no surplus 

 honey to be gathered on plants outside. Some of the fruit 

 was dipped in honey, the skin of some was punctured in 

 several places with a penknife, while the remainder was not 

 touched. Four colonies were selected, of about equal strength, 

 but in two of the hives all the honey had been removed, 

 while five frames were left in the two others. At the end of 

 a week, the honey had all been removed from the dipped 

 fruit, which remained quite sound, and the bees had also 

 sucked the juice through the punctures in the second lot of 

 fruit so long as any liquid could be obtained ; the sound fruit 

 was still uninjured, although the surface was polished and 

 shining as if the bees had been travelling over it trying to 

 find some opening through the skin. The experiment was 

 repeated for three weeks, with the same results, at the end of 

 which time the bees in the hives originally deprived of all 

 honey were very sluggish, and there were many dead. These 

 colonies had lived for three weeks on the punctured fruit and 

 the honey, but appeared to be unable to pierce the skin of 

 the sound fruit. 



[Report on Experimental Farms, Canada, igoi. ] 



Maize Ensilage. 



There are two methods of preserving maize for winter 

 feeding in common use in Canada — by curing in shocks or 

 stooks and by ensiling. Both methods inevitably lead to 

 some loss of fodder, due to the destruction by fermentation 

 of a portion of the carbo-hydrates and protein compounds. 

 Experiments made in the United States have shown that the 

 losses by field curing (in stooks) as a rule exceed those in 

 the silo, at least with fairly mature corn. It has also been 

 shown that the dry matter of stooked maize and silage is 

 practically equally digestible, but succulency and palatability 

 are more highly developed by ensilage. 



Investigations have been carried out at the Central 



