For many years I have written articles on bee culture, for the leading agricultural journals and newspaper. I have thus given much of my experience in detail, with no thought of further reward than the satisfaction of having contributed to aid bee-keepers in raising bees with greater profit, believing if all would so contribute of their practical experience with bees, great mutual benefit might be gained, and rapid progress made in successful and profitable bee culture. In consequence of my course in spreading information with a view to aid the cause, the class referred to in this chapter, and their tools, are boiling over with wrath towards me, lying and slandering me through the public press, and by every other means which their depraved natures can invent. All because I have succeeded by hard study in perfecting a hive and new system of bee management, which is fast coming into general use among bee keepers; consequently the sale of their worthless trash is decreasing rapidly. But I am anxious to get through with this part of my work, and reach the practical part, where I have the greatest confidence in my ability to give such information as will render bee keeping profitable and desirable. [Illustration] CHAPTER IV. FEEDING. FEEDING bees, when judiciously managed, is the stepping stone to large profits from them. Bee-keepers who have heretofore attempted to feed bees have met with poor success. A bee-keeper of my acquaintance paid fifty dollars for a patent apparatus for feeding bees together in the open air. The result was, soon after being fed, they commenced fighting among themselves. The weaker stocks first fell prey to the stronger, then the stronger in turn were attacked, and the final result was, nearly every stock was ruined, and the plan abandoned in disgust after the first season's trial.