Chapter 15

DIRECTIONS FOR FEEDING BEES. Feeding greatly mismanaged. Condition of the bees should be ascertained in the Spring. They should be supplied if needy, 315. Many perish from want. Connection between feeding and breeding in the hive, 316. Caution in feeding necessary. Results of over feeding, 317. Necessary to feed largely in multiplying stocks. How to feed weak swarms in Spring, 319. Considerations governing the quantity of food, 320. Main object to produce bees. Proper condition of an Apiary at close of honey season, 321. Feeding for Winter attended to in August. Unsealed honey sours. Sour food is unwholesome to bees. Striking instance, 322. Spare honey to be apportioned among the stocks. Swarms with overstocks of honey do not breed so well. Surplus honey in Spring to be removed, 323. Full frames exchanged for empty ones. Feeble stocks in Fall, to be broken up. Profits all come from strong swarms. Composition of a good bee-feed, 324. Directions for feeding with the improved hive, 325. Feeding useless when but little comb in the hive, 326. Top feeding. Feeder described. Importance of water to bees, 328. Sugar candy a valuable substitute for honey. Summer feeding, 330. Bees with proper care need but little feeding. Quantity of honey necessary to winter a stock, 331. Feeding as a source of profit. Selling W. I. honey a cheat, 332. Honey not a secretion of the bee. Evaporation of its water the principal change it undergoes, 334. Folly of diluting the feed of bees too much. Feeders of cheap honey for market, deceivers or deceived, 335. Artificial liquid honey, 336. Improved Maple sugar, 337. Feeding bees on artificial honey not profitable, 337. Dangerous feeding bees without floats. Their infatuation for liquid sweets, 339. Like that of the inebriate for his cups, 340. Avarice in bees and men, 341.