The apiary; or, bees, bee-hives, and bee culture [1865] / Being a familiar account of the habits of bees, and the most improved methods of management, with full directions, adapted for the cottager, farmer, or scientific apiarian

by Alfred Neighbor

THE NEW BOTTLE FEEDER. No. 44.

It has long been acknowledged that the best mode of feeding bees is through an opening at the top of the stock hive. The "new bottle feeder" is a simple and good means of administering food when a stock requires help in that way. Any kind of hive that has an opening at the top may thus be fed; bees can take the food from it without leaving the hive. Another important feature is the cleanliness with which liberal feeding can be accomplished; and few operations require more care than does feeding. If liquid sweet is left hanging about the hive, it tempts robber bees, and when once the bees of an apiary have had a taste, there is no knowing where their depredations will stop; they resolutely attack and endeavour to rob other hives, fighting and killing one another to a considerable extent. Even if no hives be completely destroyed, weakness from loss of numbers will be the portion of most, if not all, the hives in the garden.

The morals of our favorites are here a good deal at fault, for the strongest hives, when their inordinate passion is thus stirred up by the carelessness or want of knowledge of the bee-keeper, attack and prey upon the weak. To be "forewarned is to be forearmed"—and "prevention is better than cure." We strongly recommend closely covering up the feeder; one of the middle size bell glasses put over it makes a close fitting cover, should the regular cover to the hive not be sufficiently tight: when bees are not kept in a bee-house—and are on that account more accessible—this extra care is more particularly needed. The right time for feeding is in the autumn or spring. A stock of bees at Michaelmas ought to weigh 20 lbs. exclusive of the hive, and if then it weigh less, the deficiency should be made up by artificial food. It is not wise to defer doing this until later in the season, because it is important that when the food is placed in the cells, the bees should seal it up, and a tolerably warm temperature is required to enable them to secrete the wax for the delicately formed lids of the cells. If the food remain unsealed, there is danger of its turning sour and thereby causing disease among the bees. It is not well to feed in mid-winter or when the weather is very cold. Bees at such times consume but little food, being in a state of torpor, from which it is better not to arouse them.

A little food in the spring stimulates the queen to lay more abundantly, for bees are provident, and do not rear the young so rapidly when the supplies are short. In this particular the intelligence of bees is very striking; they have needed no Malthus to teach them that the means of subsistence must regulate the increase of a prosperous population:

"The prescient female rears the tender brood

In strict proportion to the hoarded food."—Evans.

[** no indent]Judgment has, however, to be exercised by the apiarian in giving food, for it is quite possible to do mischief by over feeding. The bees when over-fed will fill so many of the combs with honey that the queen in the early spring cannot find empty cells in which to deposit her eggs, and by this means the progress of the hive is much retarded, a result that should be guarded against.

The following directions will show how the bottle feeder is to be used:—Fill the bottle with liquid food, place the net fixed on with an India-rubber band over the mouth, place the block over the hole of the stock hive, invert the bottle, the neck resting within the hole in the block; the bees will put their proboscises through the perforations and imbibe the food, thus causing the bottle to act on the principle of a fountain. The bottle being glass, it is easy to see when the food is consumed. The piece of perforated zinc is for the purpose of preventing the bees from clinging to the net, or escaping from the hive when the bottle is taken away for the purpose of refilling. A very good syrup for bees may be made by boiling 6 lbs. of honey with 2 lbs. of water for a few minutes; or loaf sugar, in the proportion of 3 lbs. to 2 lbs. of water, answers very well when honey is not to be obtained.

ROUND BEE FEEDER. No. 10.