THE APIARY. 
391 
as being general. The food, too, must be placed 
some little distance from the hives, for the commotion 
it occasions, if in their midst, would almost certainly 
lead to robbing by the excited bees, just conscious that 
abundance is at command close at hand. The syrup 
should be given very thin, and the supply must be 
suffered to run out towards the afternoon, or many 
staying too late at the feast would perish. The 
practice saves time, and is safe in the hands of an 
expert, but it is not to be generally recommended. 
The specific gravity of syrup is greater than that 
of water, and hence the former immediately sinks as 
Fig. 98.— The “Amateur” Feeder i.\ Section (Scale, i). 
A, Feeder charged— S, Sugar : st/, Syrup ; ct. Central Tube, by which Fees 
Enter ; ffl, Cover of Glass ; h, Handle ; I, Lid. B, Feeder arranged for Slow 
Feeding— CO, Cone of Perforated Tin ; ?r, w, Wicks ; other Letterings as before 
sugar dissolves. If the sugar lie at the bottom of the 
vessel, the water there is soon saturated with sugar, 
when it is incapable of dissolving more. We all have 
observed, as an illustration of this, that sugar may 
long remain only partially melted in an unstirred cup 
of tea, notwithstanding the high temperature, and the 
extreme solubility of sugar in hot water. To complete 
the solution, in the absence of stirring, the denser 
syrup must be removed from below, as in the case of 
the inverted tumbler just cited, or the sugar must in 
