3?6 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
when the process is repeated. The first workers are 
joined by others, and at last the nest is detected. 
Sometimes, the tree is felled, ruining the colony 
possibly, the “ bumping ” being too energetically ad- 
ministered ; at others, the climber, having pronged 
irons strapped down the side of the leg and beneath 
the boot, brings down the nest somewhat in the 
manner previously described. 
Feeding, intelligently managed, does more than 
anything else, in an uncertain climate like ours, to 
increase the bee-keeper’s harvest; and we have now 
to consider the requisites of foods given as substitutes 
for, or additions to, natural stores, consisting of honey 
and pollen, to which_, in certain cases, water must 
be added. The first of these is practically non-nitro- 
genous, and may for the moment be regarded as sugar 
made liquid by water, as its sugar gives it its food 
value, constituting it a producer of heat and force. 
Sugar syrup properly prepared, on this account sub- 
stitutes it so completely that nothing is left to be 
desired. The curious compounds once advocated are 
no longer employed, while such additions' as ale and 
porter are now known to be not only useless, but 
actually dangerous, since they contain nitrogenous sub- 
stances in combination with ferments, and these, when 
added to sugar, are extremely likelv, especially in the 
warm hive, to cause fermentation of the honey and its 
associated pollen, blowing the latter out of the cells in 
a frothy mass, to the great detriment of the stock.* 
* I have had two cases under the microscope in which alcoholic 
fermentation from the cause given was in rapid progress in most of 
the cells, the Torula cerevisicc (yeast) showing considerable activity, 
while the honey had been made watery by destruction of its sugar. 
