On the return of spring it will again be essential to attend to feeding the bees, and this precaution must be exercised till May, when they will be able to take care of themselves. A little food in the spring, even when the store is not all expended, is of value as stimulating the queen to lay more abundantly, for bees are provident and do not rear the young rapidly when supplies are short. In this particular their intelligence is very striking; they have needed no Malthus to teach them that the means of subsistence must regulate the increase of population. "Part of the wondrous whole by Heaven designed, Blest with some portion of ethereal mind,[31] The prescient female rears her tender brood In strict proportion to the hoarded food." Evans. [Footnote 31: "His quidam signis, atque hæc exempla secuti, Esse apibus partem divinæ mentis, et haustus Æthereos dixere."--_Virgil_, G. iv. 219. ] Judgment has, however, to be exercised to avoid _over-feeding_, or else so many cells will be filled with honey that the queen can find none in which to deposit her eggs, and thus the progress of the hive will be seriously interfered with. It may also lead to the formation of drone cells--a thing to be avoided under any circumstances. But if the hive is thoroughly impoverished a more rapid process of feeding becomes necessary, and the honey should be poured between the combs. The bees will lick each other clean after this. A very good syrup can be made by boiling three pounds of loaf sugar with nearly two pints of water. Sugar-candy and barley-sugar have also been each highly recommended for winter and early spring feeding, when small pieces can easily be pushed in at the top of the stock hive a little at a time. They have the advantage of being unlikely to turn sour or to cause dysentery, as liquid food does when the bees are confined by bad weather. It is of the most urgent importance that the bees should have water supplied them as soon as laying recommences, which should be early in January; if the weather is such as to prevent their leaving the hive, they must have it given them within. "For preparing the nourishment for the brood," says Dzierzon, "water is to the bees indispensable. Sooner could they dispense for a considerable time with pollen." It is also needful to them for the preparation of wax, and, adds the same writer, "when the egg-laying commences, some amount of wax is usually produced equally soon, the bees requiring it for the covering of the brood cells." For a double reason therefore water must be supplied them; but in their eagerness to obtain it they are often drowned, so that It is well to give it them in shallow vessels containing pebbles for them to alight on. Salt also, says Dr. Bevan, is eagerly partaken of during the early part of the breeding season till the beginning of May, after which they seem wholly indifferent to it.