A TEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
27 
the combs are all full there is no need of feeding. Some 
combs used for feeding may be a quarter or half full of 
honey, and if I desire this to be removed by the bees, the 
sealing must be broken before the comb is filled with syrup. 
I do not know how I like to do this best. If I mash the cells 
down with the flat of a knife, some of them are missed. An 
uncapping knife makes good work; but the quickest and 
easiest way probably, I learned from M. M. Baldridge. Take 
a common three-tined steel fork with prongs not over one- 
fifth of an inch apart, and merely scratch the surface. A 
possible objection to this plan is that the scratching may be 
too deep, and the cell walls broken down. 
In my locality I do not think the colonies can ever become 
strong and populous too early in the season. Theoretically, 
at least, then, I see that every colony as soon as it comes out 
of the cellar, has plenty of stores to last it for sometime. I 
know this is a very indefinite amount. Perhaps I might 
make it more definite by saying, for an ordinary colony, the 
equivalent of two full combs of stores. If they have not so 
much I supply them. I formerly thought it desirable to have 
any feed given them, as far as possible from the brood-nest, 
so that they might have the feeling they were accumulating 
from abroad. Further observation makes me place less 
confidence in this. 
I once gave *i frame of feed to a colony having five frames, 
closed up with a division-board. The north half of the hive 
was empty. For some reason I put in with the frame of feed 
a frame of clean empty comb, placing the two combs at the 
extreme north side of the hive, as far as I could get them 
from the bees. The bees emptied the frame of feed, and 
stored it in the empty comb at the side ! I think there was 
plenty of room for the feed in the five frames occupied by 
the bees. For this spring feeding, then, I put the frames 
of feed inside the division-board. Its being dauby and 
sticky is enough to make the bees promptly empty it, n 
matter where it is placed, 
