Bee Keeping for Profit. A New System of Bee Management (1880) / First Edition.

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.

Now it is plain to every intelligent person, that in order to receive the greatest possible profit from bees, they must be fed. There can be no question as to the great benefit to be derived from feeding bees. The only question is, how, when and what to feed. It is as much a necessity to feed bees, as to feed our domestic animals, cows, sheep, &c., or to apply manure to plants, or any crop the farmer cultivates, to stimulate growth and increase the product, and consequent profit of the same. We should look upon that farmer as either a fool or a lunatic, who should furnish his domestic animals no food, except what they obtained by grazing in the pastures and fields, the year round. And do you think his cows treated thus, would yield him a large product of butter, cheese and milk, and consequently a good profit in dollars and cents? Do you think he would find his cows, managed thus, so profitable as to induce him to keep cows to any great extent? Let a farmer manage thus—take his cows to the barn, milk them, then turn them out the year round to graze and provide for themselves, taking them up only to milk them, furnishing them with no food except what they procure by grazing—how long, think you, would such a farmer have cows to milk? Yet this is a parallel case with the bee-keeper who furnishes his bees with no feed except what they can procure by their own industry. And is it surprising that bees treated thus pay no profit?

Again, the farmer who should year after year plant his corn, potatoes, etc., apply no manure, furnish no cultivation, yet expect to succeed in farming, harvest large crops, and get a good yearly profit in dollars and cents, and grumble because he did not, and at last abandon the business, asserting that there was no profit in farming, furnishes another parallel case to the bee-keeper who lets his bees shift for themselves, and then grumbles because they pay no profit, and at last abandons the business, asserting that there is no money in bee-keeping.

It being self evident that it is profitable to feed bees, it now remains to show how to do it with the greatest possible profit.

Receipt for Feed.

To eight pounds of coffee crushed sugar, add two quarts of soft water, and whites of two eggs; bring to the boiling point over a slow fire, being very careful not to burn it. Skim off carefully all skum or sediment that rises, so that the feed, when cool, will be perfectly clear and about the consistency of new honey.

To construct the feeder,[3] get a tin-worker to make you a tin dish, with perpendicular sides, nine inches square inside, three inches deep, without a bottom. Around the lower edge turn the tin out about one half inch all round, for the dish to rest on when placed on the hive for feeding the bees. Around the top of this dish put a stout wire to keep it in shape Get another tin dish made 8 by 8½ inches square inside, two and one-half inches deep, with a bottom. Place the smaller dish inside the larger one, the bottom of the inner dish even and level with the lower edge of the outer dish, which brings the top of the under dish one-half inch lower than the upper edge of the outer dish; then when the outer dish is covered, (as it will be in feeding,) there will be a halt inch space between the cover over the outer dish, and the top of the inner dish.

Place one of the shorter sides of the inner dish against the inside of the outer dish, in such a position that there will be a half inch space all round between the outer and inner dish, except at the side where you fasten them together; across this one side join them firmly together with solder; at the bottom near the opposite end solder brass or tin about one inch wide, across the half-inch space from the bottom of the inner dish to the edg;e of the outer dish, to hold the dishes firmly in place. Near the upper edge of the outer dish solder an some strips of lead about one inch long, by one-half inch wide, to turn down over the corner when put on, to hold it in place. Now get out two pieces of half-inch board, eight inches long, and two and one-half inches wide; with a thick saw, cut channels crosswise of the pieces, three-eighths of an inch apart and one-fourth inch deep, the whole length of the pieces, being careful to run your saw square across the piece every time. Next get out pieces to correspond with the number of channels, eight inches long, two and one-half inches wide, one-eighth inch thick, (sawed out so the sides will be rough, to enable the bees the better to hold fast to them, when taking feed). These pieces are to stand edgewise in the inner dish. With a sharp knife bring the ends of the pieces to a thin edge, so they will easily slip into the channels in the half inch pieces. Put the pieces with the channels, one across each end of the inner dish, the channels of each facing the inside of the dish, then slip the ends of your pieces that are one-eighth thick down through the channels, to the bottom of the inner dish. Before you put them down into the dish, cut out a small notch, in what will be the lower end of each piece after it is put down into the dish, so the food when poured in will flow to all parts of the feeder. The pieces or slats when all put edgewise in the dish will reach to the bottom and be on a level with the edges of the inner dish.

Now for the cover: get out a piece of board a half-inch thick, nine and one-fourth inches long, four inches wide. In the centre of this piece, with a sharp bit, make a one-inch hole; cover the hole with fine wire cloth, bent a little convex. Put this piece of board over the outer dish, with wire cloth next to the inside of the dish, (put it across that end where the dishes are soldered together,) hold it in place by turning up over it the pieces of lead soldered on near the upper edge of the outer dish. Cover the bottom of the dish with glass, held in place in the same manner, by the leads.

Your Feeder is now finished. Set it over the brood section on the top, at the rear, the wood cover next to the back of the hive, the glass toward the front. Cover that portion of the brood section of the hive, not covered with the feeder, with a honey board, so no bees can get up into the cap of the hive.

Now to feed, pour the feed in at the inch hole, in the cover. The bees pass from the hive up between the sides of the outer and inner dishes, in the half-inch space, over the sides of the inner dish, in the half-inch space between the cover of the outer dish and the edges of the slats that are placed edgewise in the inner dish, and pass down between the slats, after feed in the inner dish. The hole in the cover should be kept closed with a cork, to confine the heat to the hive, exclude insects, etc.

When first commencing to feed a stock, scatter some of the feed over the tops of the frames in the brood section; also on the sides of the dishes on each side of the half-inch space leading lo the feed, and on top of the slats of the feeder, so the bees may find the way to the feed. After they once learn the road, they will need no coaxing to induce them to take the feed given them. The first warm days in early spring, as soon as the bees can fly a few hours in the middle of the day, mix corn meal with rye meal, equal parts, and set out, in pans or other shoal dishes, near the hives. The bees will carry this to their hives in considerable quantities. It it used as a substitute for pollen or bee bread, and is very essential in forwarding the increase of bees in early spring. The meal should be fed very early in spring, for as soon as the bees can collect pollen from the natural sources—trees, shrubs, flowers, etc., they will not take this meal.

Feeding for Early Swarms.

If you wish early swarms, keep the bees confined in their labors to the brood section of the hive, or in other words, do not give them access to the boxes, and commence as early in the spring as the bees begin to fly in the middle of the day, and feed each stock at evening about one-half pound of the liquid feed. Continue this till your swarms issue, then discontinue feeding.

Feeding for Surplus Honey.

If you wish surplus honey instead of swarms, put on your side boxes as early in the spring as the bees commence brisk work on flowers,—as a general rule, say a few days before fruit blossoms appear. Feed as directed for swarms until about ten days before white clover blossoms, then put on the top boxes, leaving room only for feeder. Then for ten or twelve days feed them all they will take. Feed at evening. They will at first, perhaps, take from five to ten pounds every night. Crowd them hard, for the object is now to get every part of the brood section (not occupied by eggs and brood) filled with honey; and if possible, crowd the bees into the boxes to commence the work of comb building, so that during the yield of honey from flowers, you can get every ounce collected, stored in the boxes.

By early and judicious feeding, we have encouraged breeding so that now our hives are filled, almost to overflowing, with bees, ready to gather the harvest from the flowers as soon as they commence to yield honey.

Discontinue feeding, while the yield of honey continues in full supply from the flowers. At the close of the yield, if you have boxes half filled or more, feed all they will take up for a few days, or until your boxes are finished.

Feeding for Winter.

The last of September or first of October feed such stocks as are short of stores, to winter them. Each stock should have twenty pounds of honey in the brood section to winter safely. If they have less than that, feed until they have that quantity, or take a frame of honey from a stock that has some to spare, and exchange with the one that is short, and so proceed until all have sufficient stores to winter safely.

In no case take out frames at the close of the season, and leave that space without a frame, or with an empty frame. At the commencement of winter every hive must (to winter safely) have its full number of frames filled with comb, no matter if they are not filled with honey (if the hive has the required number of pounds,) but each frame must be filled, or nearly filled with comb, or there is great danger of loss from sudden changes of temperature through the winter.

In feeding for box honey, it often requires more than one pound of feed to secure a pound in boxes, for the bees consume some while storing it, and they often find some place in the hive which, like the crowded omnibus or street car, is not so full but that additions may be made.

The reader will bear in mind this simple fact: Bees do not make honey, they simply collect it. Honey undergoes no chemical change in the stomach of the bee.

Several years since my bees had access to several molasses hogsheads, and the result was, I found pure molasses stored in my hives, in the same comb with nice white honey. I am satisfied that the bee does not make honey, but collects it. My feed is prepared and recommended in view of this fact, and in perfect accord with all points bearing upon this subject.

The feed is of the same color as the nicest, white clover honey, and when put in boxes by the bees with the honey collected from flowers, (I have no doubt in many instances in alternate layers in the same cell with honey from flowers,) it cannot be distinguished, either in color or taste, from honey collected wholly from flowers.