28 
BEE-CULTURE- 
cation should the hive become frozen air-tight below. The 
best plan I know for protection on the summer stand, is to 
set them close together, near the ground. Set up boards to 
make a box all around them a foot higher than the hives, 
leaving a space of a foot or more between the boards and the 
sides of the hives. Into this space and on the top of the 
hives, pack saw-dust or chaff. If there are holes in the top 
of each hive and a cap or box set over them, it will help to 
ventilate and rid them of moisture, as it would rise from the 
bees into this cover and settle on the sides of it and run out 
under its edges, instead of running down again among the 
bees. Or, if there were a tube or openings from the top of 
the hives up into the open air, it would be of some advantage. 
All should be well sheltered. Bore a h)le with an inch 
auger, in the centre of the front of the hive, to which apply 
a tube. This tube should be long enough to extend through 
the chaff and will answer as an entrance for the bees and for 
ventilation. 
FEEDING BEES. 
Should bees be fed ? If so, when ? How much ? With 
what 1 What objects are accomplished by it ? 
I think that it is really good economy to spend some money 
for feed. “What!” I have heard it said in praise of their 
thrift, that “Bees work for nothing and board themselves.” 
I am often told by bee-keepers: “If my bees do not make 
honey enough for themselves, they may die.” Again: “I 
have known persons to spend a great deal in feeding bees, 
and yet they died.” Others say: “Feeding often induces 
robbery and does more harm than good.” When it was cus- 
tomary for bee-keepers, in the fall, to kill their richest colo- 
nies for their large stores of hpney, and their weak ones to 
save the little they had gathered, and to prevent them from 
starving, there were fewer bees to die, and there was less feed- 
ing to do ; but now we wish to save all the bees we can, and 
there is no remedy for poor stocks but to feed them. 
What shall we feed '/ Honey is the most natural food for 
bees, but it cannot always be had, and is rather expensive. 
Cuba, or West India honey is manufactured by bees and im- 
ported mainly from the West Indies, and is a good substitute 
for the domestic honey. Nearly twenty thousand pounds of 
this honey was purchased within twenty-five miles of this 
