20 
A YEAR AMONG THE BEES. 
any other purpose, I must look sharp where I set my feet, or 
bees will be killed, as they are quite thick over the ground, 
brushing the meal off their bodies and packing their loads. 
Before many days the meal-boxes are deserted for the now 
plenty natural pollen, although if you watch the bees, as they 
go laden into the hives, even when working thickest in the 
boxes, you will see a good many carrying in heavy loads of 
natural pollen. 
It seems to be a beneficent natural law, that bees do not 
like to crowd one another in their search for pollen or nectar, 
or else the meal-boxes would be untouched and all the bees 
would work upon the insufficient supply of pollen. In conse- 
quence of this law it is necessary to furnish a sufficient 
number of boxes, for although the bees will work quite 
thick if only 5 boxes are left for 150 hives, they will work no 
thicker if only one box is left. 
FEEDING SYRUP. 
I have fed barrels of syrup in the open air, and although I 
have not done so for a year or two, circumstances might 
possibly arise to make it again advisable. The feed was put 
in milk-pans and dripping-pans, and at the last I had some 
tin-pans, purposely made, which were used the rest of the 
year as milk-paus. They cost about 25 cents each and were 
made nearly square, being 12 inches long on the bottom and 
11 inches wide, 3 J 4 -inches deep, and flaring so as to be one 
inch wider and longer at the top than at the bottom. 
After fussing with cheese-cloths and different floats I 
settled upon the following float : A bottom of boards M-inch 
thick , \\% by 10% so as to be %-inch less than bottom of pan, 
on which were nailed, or rather the bottom boards were 
nailed upon, 12 strips 11Mx1Mx%, these strips being about 
l^-inch apart. At one corner, about an inch square was cut 
out, so that syrup might be poured in while the bees were at 
work, without pouring directly on the bees. 
