284 
DOMESTIC ANIMALS. 
the mouldiness and damp from the floor-board, and let it be well dried. 
The bottoms of the combs often become mouldy in the winter, especi- 
ally in light stocks, and it will be a good thing to cut off the lower 
portions, which may be done with a table-knife, and without danger, by 
turning the hive on one side, in the evening or early in the morning, or 
at any time, if you take the precaution of wearing a bee-dress, here- 
after described. The bees will soon renew the combs, and their health 
will be improved by the removal of the decayed portions. 
Feeding. — Many swarms die in spring for want of food, and the wise 
apiarian will therefore feed his bees liberally, bearing in mind that what 
he gives them is not lost, as they can fully store for their owners’ use 
what is not needed for their own support. 
Begin to feed the light stocks ; a liberal supply of food will be amply 
repaid by the consequent health and vigor of your bees, and the abund- 
ant store they will collect for your future benefit. And do not prema- 
turely encourage the bees to go in search of food, but rather confine 
them to their homes. Guard against the admission of stranger bees 
while yours are feeding. Give honey now, if you can, rather than 
syrup, as it forms a better ingredient than sugar in the jelly which sup- 
ports the young brood. 
The consumption of food in a hive is now perhaps greater than at 
any period of the year. The queen lays from one hundred to two 
hundred eggs daily, and the increase of the brood is so prodigious, that 
it is impossible for any except a well-stored hive to meet the demand 
for food. Many persons wonder that their bees die in the spring, when 
they have survived the winter; but the food consumed during the cold 
weather is comparatively very small to what it is during breeding time. 
On this ground, then, feed abundantly all the stocks, but especially the 
light ones. 
Feeding outside the hive, by placing food at the entrance, is a bad 
method, as stranger bees are attracted, which deprive your bees of a 
proportion of that which you have provided for them. Feeding at the 
bottom disturbs the bees, lowers the temperature of the hive when the 
food is introduced, and thus occasions loss of life therefore, to obviate 
these evils, ingenious feeding-pans have been invented for supplying food 
at the top of the hive. 
The following directions for feeding bees are from “ The Bee-Keepers’ 
Chart “ Before feeding 
is commenced the hives 
should be set down upon 
the floors and the entrances 
for the bees so closed as 
to admit only one or two 
at a time. Two or three 
inch auger holes may be 
bored in the top, and 
the feeder placed by the 
side of them and covered 
with a small box, and this covered with an old carpet to prevent other 
bees from scenting the feed.” Phelps’s Bee-Feeder is thus figured 
PHELPS’8 HUE-FEEDER. 
