404 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
of milk to I lb. of sugar. The bees take it greedily, 
and raise brood in consequence very rapidly ; but they 
store it in their cells, so that decomposition subse- 
quently sets in, and they then refuse to remove it — 
at least, this has been my experience with every trial, 
and at present I have a stock suffering from this very 
cause. Baron von Berlepsch found the same. Care, 
moreover, is required, or the feeding-vessels get 
badly fouled, and the milk sours immediately. The 
souring, however, does not hinder the bees in appro- 
priating it. 
Herr Hilbert claims to have had no difficulties, and 
to have succeeded in getting, by means of his plans, 
overwhelming populations. The egg diet he prefers 
to the milk. The white and yolk are well beaten 
up, and mixed with honey or syrup — 2lb. honey 
or syrup to ilb. of egg substance. It is given be- 
neath the cluster, when the bees only take so much 
of it as they can use at the time for the preparation 
of brood-food ; but it has the great disadvantage of 
driving out the bees to search for water, of which the 
milk diet contains sufficient. If any stock, having 
already accepted egg food, refuse it, no further supply 
is offered them for a week; but the mixture is taken 
to a more needy lot. The Hilbert system is too 
messy, and involves too much risk, to make it gene- 
rally acceptable, although at times it might be peculiarly 
useful, as with the condemned bees previously referred 
to, for its stimulating influence is, possibly, unequalled. 
JVa^er, the prime necessity of all life — for without 
it not even an animal or a vegetable cell can live 
— is at least as needful to bees as food. Bee-hunters 
