"His quidam signis, atque hæc exempla secuti,
Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus
Æthereos dixere."—Virgil, G. iv. 219.
Judgment has, however, to be exercised to avoid over-feeding, or else so many cells will be filled with honey that the queen can find none in which to deposit her eggs, and thus the progress of the hive will be seriously interfered with. It may also lead to the formation of drone cells—a thing to be avoided under any circumstances. But if the hive is thoroughly impoverished a more rapid process of feeding becomes necessary, and the honey should be poured between the combs. The bees will lick each other clean after this.
A very good syrup can be made by boiling three pounds of loaf sugar with nearly two pints of water. Sugar-candy and barley-sugar have also been each highly recommended for winter and early spring feeding, when small pieces can easily be pushed in at the top of the stock hive a little at a time. They have the advantage of being unlikely to turn sour or to cause dysentery, as liquid food does when the bees are confined by bad weather.
It is of the most urgent importance that the bees should have water supplied them as soon as laying recommences, which should be early in January; if the weather is such as to prevent their leaving the hive, they must have it given them within. "For preparing the nourishment for the brood," says Dzierzon, "water is to the bees indispensable. Sooner could they dispense for a considerable time with pollen." It is also needful to them for the preparation of wax, and, adds the same writer, "when the egg-laying commences, some amount of wax is usually produced equally soon, the bees requiring it for the covering of the brood cells." For a double reason therefore water must be supplied them; but in their eagerness to obtain it they are often drowned, so that It is well to give it them in shallow vessels containing pebbles for them to alight on. Salt also, says Dr. Bevan, is eagerly partaken of during the early part of the breeding season till the beginning of May, after which they seem wholly indifferent to it.
Such are the instructions for the regular process of feeding, though even this, with good management, should not be needed unless in exceptional circumstances. It has been remarked in the section on "Swarming" that a supply of food is advisable at such occasions also, but this is but an incidental trifle as compared with the other. The task of bringing a hive safely through the winter will undoubtedly dismay some of the inexperienced, and perhaps incline them to a preference for the fire-and-brimstone quieters. But a little attention to directions at the first will soon make the process tolerably simple; while as to the relative profits of the two methods, it must be recollected that the honey left in the stock hive for winter sustenance is not much of it of a saleable quality, and the value of it and of any extra syrup supplied will be far more than made up when in May a swarm comes off, and two colonies are possessed where on the old system there would have been none at all.
§ XX. WINTER PRECAUTIONS.
The most important of these is the one discussed in the preceding section. There are, however, several other points which it is of consequence for the apiarian to observe.