A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing BeesWeeks, John M. (John Moseley)
Science
A Manual or an Easy Method of Managing Bees
Weeks, John M. (John Moseley)
Bees
The best time to feed is in the fall, before cold weather commences. All
hives should be weighed, and the weight marked on the hive before bees are
hived in them. Then, by weighing a stock as soon as frost has killed the
blossoms in the fall, the apiarian will be able to form a just estimate of
their necessities.
When bees are fed in the fall, they will carry up and deposit their food
in such a manner as will be convenient for them in the winter. If feeding
is neglected until cold weather the bees must be removed to a warm room,
or dry cellar, and then they will carry up their food, generally, no
faster than they consume it.
A feeder should be made like a box with five sides closed, leaving a part
of the sixth side open, to admit the bees from their common entrance with
its floor level, when hitched on the front of the hive. It should be of
sufficient depth to lay in broad comb, filled with honey. If strained
honey without combs is used for feeding, a float, perforated with many
holes, should be laid over the whole of the honey in the box, or feeder,
so as to prevent any of the bees from drowning; and at the same time, this
float should be so thin as to enable them to reach the honey. It should be
made so small that it will settle down as fast as the honey is removed by
the bees. As soon as warm weather commences in the spring, the feeder may
be used. Small drawers cannot be depended on as feeders, except in the
spring and summer, unless they are kept so warm that the vapor of the bees
will not freeze in them. It would be extremely hazardous for the bees to
enter a frosty drawer. They will sooner starve than attempt the
experiment. Drawers may be used without danger from robbers, but when the
feeder is used, robbers must be guarded against as directed in Rule 4.
Care should be exercised, in fall-feeding, to supply them with good honey,
otherwise the colony may be lost before spring by disease. Poor honey may
be given them in the spring, at the time when they can obtain and provide
themselves with medicine, which they only best understand.
Sugar dissolved, or molasses, may be used in the spring to some advantage,
but ought not to be substituted for honey, when it can be obtained.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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