. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 116 April, 1915. American Hee Jonrnal that there are places where at times the honey is very unwholesome for winter food; indeed, there may be places where it is always so. In such cases sugar syrup is surely the better winter food. But I suspect that cases of that kind are quite exceptional, and that in the great majority of cases bees will winter all right, so far as food is concerned, if allowed to gather their own stores. I lay no small stress on the thought that honey is the natural food, the food universally supplied, and so there is little chan
. American bee journal. Bee culture; Bees. 116 April, 1915. American Hee Jonrnal that there are places where at times the honey is very unwholesome for winter food; indeed, there may be places where it is always so. In such cases sugar syrup is surely the better winter food. But I suspect that cases of that kind are quite exceptional, and that in the great majority of cases bees will winter all right, so far as food is concerned, if allowed to gather their own stores. I lay no small stress on the thought that honey is the natural food, the food universally supplied, and so there is little chance for mistake about its be- ing best. I will be told that we can improve upon nature. Yes, so we can, at least in a certain way. Witness the latest flowers and fruit. But has there ever been a case in which the skill of man has gotten up a better food than that supplied by nature for a whole class of beings? For many years able minds have been devoted to devising some substi- tute for the natural food of the young of the human family, and we are all familiar with the pictures of plump babies brought up on "What-you-call- him's Baby Food," yet in an able article in the March number of " Good House- keeping," occurs this rather startling statement: "Statistics have shown that ten artificially fed babies die to one naturally ; If that is so may it not well be questioned whether any substitute can be food for the produc- tion of vigorous baby-bees ? What is the difference between sugar and honey ? The sugar fed is cane sugar, and be- fore it can be properly appropriated by the bees it must be inverted by them. Are we sure that such inversion is always completed ? And if it is, is not the extra burden thus laid upon the bees detrimental to their best interests ? There is another difference between sugar and honey that is perhaps not generally recognized, and yet which is probably greatly more important. In a German bee journal, Bztg. fuer Schleswig
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Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1800, bookdecade1860, booksubjectbees, bookyear1861
