October SI, 1386. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
375 
bee-keeper a constant attention and trouble ; it brings with 
with it also, if not carefully carried out, robbing, chilled 
brood, and their attendant evils. Ia the autumn wearied 
nature seeks repose, and in the long sleep of winter gathers 
strength for the wear and tear of spring. So with the bees. 
The time of production is over, the period of rest at hand, 
and the stocks are by degrees becoming more still and quiet, 
when the bee-keeper comes and ruthlessly destroys this state 
of repose by giving driblets of food, which keep the stock in a 
continual ferment. 
The object of these very practical men is to get a late 
hatch of brood, in order that in spring, when the aged bees 
are fast dying out, the younger ones bred in late autumn 
and never having experienced hard work and death-hastening 
toil, may fill their places and keep up the strength of the 
stock until brood hatches out more freely. Now, if all this 
could be managed without any serious difficulty but little 
could be urged against a practice which would, were it not 
for several very serious objections, possibly be useful in 
practical bee-keeping. But there are several objections, and 
the first is that the number of young bees bred in autumn is, 
while large enough to tax the queen and the worker bees to 
the utmost, scarcely more than large enough to fill up the 
vacancies occasioned by the late and extra work laid upon 
the workers by this untimely extension of their period of 
work, while those which do remain are so weakened and aged 
that they die very many weeks earlier than they would have 
done in the ordinary course of events. 
The second objection is that the late brood is sometimes— 
and unless more than usual care is taken, oftener, in fact, 
than many imagine—chilled by early frosts. The third, and 
perhaps greatest, objection of all is that a queen, when, so to 
speak, compelled to deposit eggs after the usual time in 
autumn, does not begin to lay so early in the following year, 
so that on considering the result of this stimulative feeding 
the system will hardly appear to the impartial man to be so 
eminently conducive to success as some wouldhaveu=iimagine. 
The result, in fact, appears to be that a slight increase in 
population is obtained in autumn at the expense of a 
weakened queen, spring depletion, and infinite trouble to the 
bee keeper, and all this too at a risk of chilled brood and 
robbing. Add to this that not the slightest necessity for 
any such system exists, and the case seems clear enough to 
carry conviction to many. 
What, then, is the alternative ? It is, as I have frequently 
pointed out, to add driven bees in quantity sufficient to bring 
up the stock to the required strength. Now, in an apiary 
where swarming is allowed and no permanent increase in the 
number of stocks is required, no difficulty or expense in 
obtaining bees will be experienced, for if each swarm is 
placed in proximity to a stock the one can in autumn be 
united to the other, and the stock will be very fit to stand 
the winter. If, again, it is preferred, both the stock and 
swarm may be driven and the bees united and fed into a 
sugar fed stock; or if the hives are fitted with frames, and 
these contain well-built regular combs, there may be an 
interchange of combs, the owner keeping back for sale those 
which contain the greatest weight of honey, and feeding the 
bees with syrup for a winter provision. Either of these 
causes may be followed with equal success and advantage 
both to the bees and their master. 
Whether the queen can be induced by feeding syrup to 
lay again when once she has ceased from doing so is 
apparently somewhat of a vexed question ; but unless a con¬ 
siderable time has elapsed since egg-depositing was stayed 
before stimulative feeding was begun she will undoubtedly 
again begin to lay, so far as my experience goes, and I am 
not at all sure that she will in any case show any very great 
disinclination to resume her labour. If stocks are weak they 
must by all means be strengthened, but no resort should be 
had to so dangerous and futile a practice as stimulative 
feeding, which together with spreading of brood and other 
manipulations of a like nature has been a pitfall into which 
many an otherwise good bee-keeper his dropped, and found 
to his sorrow that he was quite unable to extricate himself 
from his awkward position except by the rejection of all such 
practices.—F elix. 
NOTES ON BEES. 
The weather for the past two weeks here has been the most 
agreeable and settled during the whole year, the mean tempera¬ 
ture being about 55°. The thunderstorms and big floods else¬ 
where did not visit us. Outstanding crops, however, owing to 
the heat and calmness of the atmosphere, were not benefited by 
the mildness, better if it had been more airy. Much victual is 
still in the stook, and owing to the break of weather (Oct. 9th) 
the ground is much sodden, and a leaden sky overhead does not 
augur well for a speedy clearance of the fields. 
The bees up till to-day (Oct. 11th) hare been busy and carried 
much pollen, being required for breeding purposes by the bees 
having young queens. Feeding has been very little resorted to 
this year, and is long since past for a season with the few nuclei 
not otherwise assisted. Every one of my hives unless one stand 
upon ventilating floors ; all unless that one are dry and comfort¬ 
able. That one having been fed is damp, and unless supplied 
with a dry or ventilating one will assuredly suffer, so will supply 
it with a new one at once. It is the damp generated in the 
corners of hives and close-fitting solid floors that is the cause of 
so much mortality amongst bies during the next three months. 
Even when pretty far advanced in the spring fed hives will then 
be very often damp and disagreeable. Avoid feeding if possible. 
Many of your readers are aware of the great value put by 
some on regulating feeders and stimulating feeding, but without 
giving the slightest proof, unless assertions, that any good 
accrues therefrom. It is well known that I am opposed to any 
such modes of feeding, experience having taught me that non- 
fed hives are usually the most productive. All the queries I ever 
put regarding feeding in driblets, and the advantages likely to be 
gained thereby, 1 never could elicit a single answer. For the 
benefit of your readers I made several experiments with hives in 
good condition for breeding by feeding them with driblets. 
After 1 reduced them to a state similar to what is advised by 
advocates of the stimulative feeding system. 
During the beginning of September, when the weather was 
fine, I began the experiment. The hives had abundance and 
more for their immediate wants, but not sufficient stores to tide 
them over winter. 1 began feeding in driblets, and although 
thousands of eggs were laid not one was allowed to become a 
larva. During the last week of September I discontinued feed¬ 
ing, and filled up the hives with frames containing honey suffi¬ 
cient to keep the bees alive till next May. Immediately that was 
done the eggs were allowed to hatch, quantities of pollen was 
carried in, and large patches of sealed brood are now in the hive 
Feeding in large quantities would have had the same effect, but 
I prefer allowing Nature in this respect to take its course. Keep 
your bees well supplied with food at all times. They are true 
economists, will waste nothing, and pay back a hundredfold 
what you lavish on them. 
Some people hold strange views about bees, and feeding in 
in particular. Lately I presented a feeder to a gentleman, who 
I learn lectures on bees and bee-keeping, and yet in a letter 
he informs me that the feeder sent him is worthless, as the 
bees consume too much sugar when fed from it, and was thereby 
expensive. 1 put some queries to him, but like all others they 
remain unanswered. 
The winter will soon be upon us, and the time is fast 
approaching when bees will settle and do not wish to be dis¬ 
turbed. No time should be lost until every hive is in its winter’s 
covering. Nothing is better or cheaper for straw or single-cased 
wooden hives than a hackle of straw for the sides and 3 or 
4 inches of meadow hay upon the top and over all a sheet of 
ga'vanised iron, which serves as a porch both in front and back, 
and projects so much at the sides that when properly fastened no 
rain ever touches the hive, insuring dryness, the secret of success 
in bee keeping. When placing the iron upon the hives let the 
top of the hive be slightly hollow, so that any damp rising from 
the bees will be immediately carried away. The hackle, too, 
made upon a string should reach only to the hay packing, so that 
feeding from above is not interrupted.—A Lanarkshire Bee¬ 
keeper. 
PURCHASING HIVES AND BEES. 
A Roxburgh correspondent wishe9 advice on the above ; also as to 
the best books to buy for instructing bee-keepers. If he looks to the 
advertisements of Messrs. George Neighbour Sc Sons, 149, Regent Street, 
