402 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
the cells, and the comb returned. Two hours later the 
bees had sucked out the excess of syrup, and had 
packed the pea-flour down in the most beautifully 
regular manner, as though it had been pollen gathered 
in the natural way. Thus, what with much labour, and, 
probably, much loss, could only have been accomplished 
by the efforts of hundreds of bees, had been done, 
through my help, by a few, with comparatively no 
exhaustion, and actually no exposure. Next day, 
the greater part of this pea-flour had been consumed, 
while the dry, starved appearance of the brood, well 
known to those who have over-swarmed artificially 
(page 285), had passed away. Giving doses of pollen 
as needed worked the stock into prosperity in most 
adverse external circumstances. 
Experimenting further, on the 8th of October, 1878, 
when scarcely a speck of natural pollen was obtain- 
able, and bad weather prevented outdoor gathering, 
I put 4flb. of bees, taken from eight skeps, into an 
empty hive, fed syrup freely, and examined all on the 
nth. Comb had progressed well, and eggs were laid. 
As I removed a comb, and pasted my pea-flour mix- 
ture into it, I felt some compunction in marring its 
spotless purity. Forty-eight hours later, almost the 
whole of it (30Z.) had been consumed. There were yet 
no hatched eggs that I could find. The bees, under 
the labour of comb-building, needed the nitrogenous 
food which the microscope showed in abundance in 
their stomachs. The bees had made comb on sugar only- 
but were doubtless growing in some sort emaciated 
under the process, and the pea-flour supplied the place 
of the pollen they would have consumed whilst gather- 
