During spring manipulations, in preparing bees for winter, and at other times it may be necessary to feed bees for stimulation or to provide stores. Honey from an unknown source should never be used, for fear of introducing disease, and sirup made of granulated sugar is cheapest and best for this purpose. The cheaper grades of sugar or molasses should never be used for winter stores. The proportion of sugar to water depends on the season and the purpose of the feeding. For stimulation a proportion of one-fourth to one-third sugar by volume is enough, and for fall feeding, especially if rather late, a solution containing as much sugar as it will hold when cold is best. There seems to be little advantage in boiling the sirup. Tartaric acid in small quantity may be added for the purpose of changing part of the cane sugar to invert sugar, thus retarding granulation. The medication of sirup as a preventive or cure of brood disease is often practiced, but it has not been shown that such a procedure is of any value. If honey is fed, it should be diluted somewhat, the amount of dilution depending on the season. If robbing is likely to occur, feeding should be done in the evening.
Numerous feeders are on the market, adapted for different purposes and methods of manipulation (figs. [17], [18], [19]). A simple feeder can be made of a tin pan filled with excelsior or shavings ([fig. 20]). This is filled with sirup and placed on top of the frames in a super or hive body. It is advisable to lean pieces of wood on the pan as runways for the bees, and to attract them first to the sirup, either by mixing in a little honey or by spilling a little sirup over the frames and sticks.
It may be stated positively that it does not pay financially, or in any other way, to feed sugar sirup to be stored in sections and sold as comb honey. Of course, such things have been tried, but the consumption of sugar during the storing makes the cost greater than the value of pure floral honey.
The condition of a colony of bees in the early spring depends largely upon the care given the bees the preceding autumn and in the method of wintering. If the colony has wintered well and has a good prolific queen, preferably young, the chances are that it will become strong in time to store a good surplus when the honey flow comes.
The bees which come through the winter, reared the previous autumn, are old and incapable of much work. As the season opens they go out to collect the early nectar and pollen, and also care for the brood. The amount of brood is at first small, and as the new workers emerge they assist in the brood rearing so that the extent of the brood can be gradually increased until it reaches its maximum about the beginning of the summer. The old bees die off rapidly. If brood rearing does not continue late in the fall, so that the colony goes into winter with a large percentage of young bees, the old bees may die off in the spring faster than they are replaced by emerging brood. This is known as "spring dwindling." A preventive remedy for this may be applied by feeding, if necessary, the autumn before, or keeping up brood rearing as late as possible by some other means.
