FEEDING.
The best kind of food that can be given to Bees is honey liquefied with a small portion of warm water; but where honey is scarce and dear, an excellent substitute will be found in lump sugar. Three pounds of sugar to a pint of water, boiled for two or three minutes, and then mixed with a pound of honey, this will make five pounds of excellent food, which the Bees appear to like quite as well as honey alone. Or three pounds of lump sugar may be dissolved in two pounds of water by being boiled a minute or two. This is a very cheap and simple Bee food, and really answers every purpose.
Of all other kinds of food (where honey in the combs cannot be had) barley-sugar is the best, and not only the best and the cheapest, but the safest and by far the least trouble; for when liquid food is used it is carried down by the Bees immediately upon its being supplied and stored in the combs, and the proprietor has no means of knowing at what time the store is exhausted, and a fresh supply required; but it is not so with barley-sugar, for whilst a morsel remains, which may easily be seen, it is certain the Bees will not die of want. The best method of supplying it is at the top of the hives or boxes. My plan is to tie a dozen sticks of it together, and after opening the hive at top, to place the barley-sugar over the opening, and to cover it with a garden-pan or flower-pot; and just before it is all consumed, give a fresh supply in a similar way. Persons generally are apt to imagine that as soon as a few blossoms make their appearance in the spring their Bees will not want any attention, which is a very great mistake, as many a young apiarian has discovered both to his cost and disappointment; for during the months of March and April greater care is required in feeding than at any other time, for the population is then rapidly increasing, and in a wet and cloudy season no supplies whatever can be obtained but by artificial means.
To Make Barley-sugar.—Put two pounds of loaf sugar into a saucepan with half a pint of water, and two spoonfuls of the best vinegar; put it on a gentle fire, let it boil till the syrup becomes so thick that the handle of a spoon being dipped into it, and then plunged into cold water, the syrup upon the handle is found to be quite crisp; when this is the case it is sufficiently boiled. Having an earthen dish or marble slab in readiness, well buttered, pour the syrup upon it, and, when sufficiently cool to handle, clip it with scissors into strips the size desired. The process of boiling takes about twenty minutes.
Feeding Bottles.—The very best mode of administering liquid food is by means of an inverted bottle, the mouth of which should be tied over with a bit of coarse leno or cap-net. It is a mistake to use muslin for this purpose, or, in fact, any material the meshes of which are less than a sixteenth of an inch wide. With common hives the bottle-neck may be inserted in the central aperture, which usually exists (if not, one should be made with a sharp penknife), in the top, and refilled as often as may be necessary. With flat-topped hives the bottle should be supported by its neck being fitted into a perforated block of wood about five inches in diameter, and it will be found convenient to interpose a piece of perforated zinc to prevent the Bees escaping when the bottle is refilled. A four or six-ounce medicine phial is a good size for spring-feeding, whilst a common pickle-bottle leaves nothing to be desired when a copious supply is required in autumn.
Fig. 24.
A feeding-bottle should be filled by the food being poured into it from a jug, and if the neck be narrow it may, after the mouth is tied over, be quickly inverted over the aperture in the top of the hive, so that what food escapes may run into the hive and down among the Bees. If, on the other hand, the mouth be wide, as in the case of a pickle-bottle, it should be first inverted over the jug and steadily conveyed to the hive in a reversed position When a bottle is properly managed no food runs down into the hive after it has been placed upon it, but all remains perfectly suspended whilst it is being gradually removed by the Bees, which find no difficulty in emptying a full-sized pickle-bottle every night.
Fig. 25.
a, Circular hole through which the Bees ascend; b, The feeding-pan containing the food, which is put in at the side spout, c, and upon which the float rises and falls.
Feeding-pans.—Having been frequently applied to for the plan of a feeding-pan best adapted for my Improved Cottage Hive, I am induced to answer the very many applicants by giving a description of the one I have been using for the last two or three years. It is made of stout zinc, circular, 8 inches in diameter, 21/2 inches deep, having a circular hole of 21/2 inches in the middle of the bottom, with a rim round it standing up 2 inches; a float of wood, very thin and perforated with holes, is made to fit inside, but sufficiently easy to rise and fall with the liquid in the pan; the holes in this float must first be made with a gimlet, and then burnt with an iron, or they will fill up after having been in use a little time; the whole is covered by a lid with an inside rim, the lid having a piece of glass in the centre of 21/2 or 3 inches in diameter. When first using this feeding-pan, I found much inconvenience in being obliged to remove the lid every time that a fresh supply of food was required. To obviate this difficulty, I had a half circle 3 inches in diameter, attached to its sides, with a lid or cover, and communicating with the interior of the feeding-pan by a hole cut in the side, and covered with a piece of perforated zinc, so that by looking through the glass in the lid I can see when a fresh supply of food is required; and I have then only to raise the lid of this additional side-piece, and pour in the food, which passes readily through the perforated zinc, and raises the wooden float upon its surface. Four very small tacks should be driven into the under side of the float, at equal distances from each other, to prevent its going quite to the bottom of the pan; and it is also necessary for the rim in the centre of the pan to be roughed with a file, or to be lined with perforated zinc, to enable the Bees to ascend more easily than they would otherwise do if it was left quite smooth.
The float should be less than an eighth of an inch in thickness, and is better to be made of mahogany.