344 
T1IK 11IVK AND HONEY-BICE. 
January till tiio Spring fairly opens (unless the weather permiti 
them to fly safely), they will not suffer. This -water may be 
placed in a wet sponge in a feeding-box, directly over the bees, 
and protected by a cushion of moss. A hundred or more colonies 
may thus, without disturbance, be quickly supplied.” 
That bees cannot raise brood without water, has been 
known from the times of Aristotle. Buera, of Athens 
(Cotton, p. 104), aged 80 years, saidin 1797 : “Bees daily 
supply the worms with water; should the state of the 
weather be such as to prevent the bees from fetching 
water for a few days, the worms would perish. These 
dead bees are removed out of the hive by the working- 
bees, if they are healthy and strong ; otherwise, the stock 
perishes from their putrid exhalations.” I have repeat- 
edly known colonies to sufl'cr severe losses, for want of 
water ; and in my correspondence with bee-keepers, the 
last Winter (1858-9),* have directed their attention to 
this point, and have had my estimate of the value of water 
to bees in Winter greatly increased. But as yet, I have 
had no satisfactory evidence that any colonies, whose 
honey was not candied , have died from water-dearth. 
The Baron Yon Berlepsch says, that “ death from this 
cause more rarely occurs in districts where there is late 
Fall bee-forage than in those like his own, where pas- 
turage fails occasionally in July, and usually early in 
August. In such regions, the honey becomes very thick 
in Winter, and sometimes thoroughly candiedf before 
* I am particularly indebted to Mr. William W. Cary, Mr. Richard Colvin, Rev. 
.T. C. Bod well, Mr. E. T. Sturtevant, and Rev. Levi Wheaton, for careful observa- 
tions made— last Winter, at my suggestion— on wintering bees. 
t Madame Vicat , in some observations on bees, published in 1764 — see Wild- 
man, p. 281 — speaks of finding, “on the 24th of March, when the weather was so 
cold that the bees of her other hives did not go abroad, much candied honey on the 
bottom of a hive, and bees which seemed to be expiring. A singular noise was made 
In the hive, at intervals, and at such times numbers of bees would fall into tho 
candied honey, and perish. Tho bees not being able to swallow the candied honey 
emptied it out of their combs to get at such as they could swallow.” 
