FEEDING. 
269 
The singing masons building roofs of gold ; 
The civil citizens kneading up the honey ; 
The poor mechanic porters crowding in 
Their heavy burdens at his narrow gate ; 
The sad-eyed justice, with his surly hum, 
Delivering o’er, to executors pale, 
The lazy, yawning drone.” 
Siiakspeare’s Henry V., Act /., Scene 2. 
Impoverished stocks, if in common hives, may be fed 
by inverting the hives and pouring a teacupfull of 
honey among the combs in which the bees are clustered. 
A bee deluged by sweets, when away from home, is a 
sorry spectacle ; but what is thus given them does no 
harm, and they will lick each other clean, with as much 
satisfaction as a little child sucks its fingers while feasting 
on sugar candy. When the bees have taken up what has 
been poured upon them, the hive may be replaced, and 
the operation repeated, at intervals, as often as is needed. 
If the stock is in a movable-comb hive, the food may be 
put iuto an empty comb, and placed where it can be 
easily reached by the bees. 
If a colony has too few bees, its population must be 
replenished (p. 221) before it is fed. If it has but a 
small quantity of brood-combs, unless fed very moder- 
ately, it will fill the cells with honey instead of brood. 
If the Apiarian wishes the bees to build new comb, the 
food must be given so regularly as to resemble natural 
supplies, or they will store it in the cells already built. 
To build up small colonies by feeding , requires more 
care and judgment than any other process in bee-culture, 
and will rarely be required by those who have movable- 
comb hives. It can only succeed when everything is 
made subservient to the most rapid production of brood. 
By the time the honey-harvest closes, all the colonies 
ought to be strong in numbers ; and, in fiworable sea- 
