The same end may be obtained, by pouring daily, a few table spoonsfull
of water into the hive, through one of the holes leading to the spare
honey boxes. As soon as the weather becomes warm, and the bees can
supply themselves from the dew on the grass and leaves, it will not be
worth while to give them water in their hives.
When supplied with water in their hives, I advise that enough honey or
sugar be added to it, to make it tolerably sweet. They will take it with
greater relish, and it will stimulate them more powerfully to the
raising of brood.
I come now to mention a substitute for liquid honey, the value of which
has been extensively and thoroughly tested in Germany, and which I have
used with great advantage. It was not discovered by Dzierzon, although
he speaks of its excellence, in the most decided terms. The article to
which I refer, is _plain sugar candy_, or as it is often called, barley
candy. It has been ascertained that about four pounds of this, will
sustain a colony during the Winter, when they have scarcely any honey in
their hive! If it is placed where they can get access to it without
being chilled, they will cluster upon it, and gradually eat it up. It
not only goes further than double the quantity of liquid honey which
could be bought for the same money, but is found to agree with the bees
perfectly; while the liquid honey is almost sure to sour in the unsealed
cells, and expose them to dangerous, and often fatal attacks of
dysentery. I have sometimes, in the old-fashioned box hives, pushed
sticks of candy between the ranges of comb, and have found it even then
to answer a good purpose. In any hive which has surplus honey boxes, the
candy may be put into a small box, which after being covered thoroughly
with cotton or wool, may have another box put over it, the outside of
which may be also covered. Unless great precautions are used, the boxes
will be so cold, that the bees will not be able to enter them in Winter,
and may thus perish in close proximity to abundant stores.
In my hives, the candy may be laid on the top of the frames, in the
shallow chamber between the frames and the honey-board; it will here, if
the honey-board is covered with straw, be always accessible to the bees,
even in the coldest weather. I sometimes put it directly into a frame,
and confine it with a piece of twine, or fine wire.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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