half wide, extending down to the bottom of the box, and half an inch from the top; fasten over them a piece of thin board, (paste-board will answer.) You have now a shallow passage without top or bottom, outside of your feeder; give it a top of any kind; cut out just below the level of this top, a passage into the feeder for the bees. It is now complete, and when properly placed over any hole on the top of the hive, will admit the bees from the hive, into the shallow passage which has no bottom, and through this into the feeder. Such a feeder will not only be cheap, but it might almost be made by a child, and yet it will answer every purpose most admirably. If you have no wooden box that will answer, a feeder may be made of pasteboard, and if brushed with the melted mixture it will be honey-tight. By packing cotton or wool around it, it might be used in most hives, even in the dead of Winter. Bees however, ought never to need feeding in Winter, and if they do, it will always be unsafe at this season to feed them with liquid honey. I ought here to speak of the importance of _water_ to the bees. It is absolutely indispensable when they are building comb, or raising brood. In the early Spring, they take advantage of the first warm weather, to bring it to their hives, and they may be seen busily drinking around pumps, drains, and other moist places. As they are not noticed frequenting such spots much, except in the early part of the season, many suppose that they need water only at this period. This is a great mistake, for they need it, and must have it, during the whole breeding season. But as soon as the grass starts, and the trees are covered with leaves, they prefer to sip the dew from them. If a few cold days come on, after the bees have commenced breeding, so as to prevent them from going abroad for water, a very serious check will be given to their operations. Even when it is not so cold as to prevent their leaving the hive, many become so chilled in their search for water, that they are not able to return. Every wise bee-keeper will see that his bees have an abundant supply of water. If he has not some warm and sunny spot where they can safely obtain it, he will furnish them with shallow wooden troughs or vessels filled with pebbles, from which they can drink, without any risk of drowning, and where they will be sheltered from cold winds, and warmed by the genial rays of the sun. I believe that the reason why bees very much prefer the impure water of barn-yards and drains, is not because they find any medicinal quality in it, but because as it is _near_ their hives and _warm_, they can fill themselves without being fatally chilled. I have used water feeders of the same construction with my honey feeders, with great success. The bees are able to enter them at all times, as they are filled with the warm air of the hive, and thus breeding goes on, without interruption, and the lives of many bees are saved.