erior
with the mixture, so that the honey may not soak into the wood. Make a
float of thin wood, filled with quarter inch holes, with clamps nailed
on the lower sides to prevent warping, and to keep the float from
settling to the bottom of the box, so as to stick fast: it should have
ample play, so that it may settle, as fast as the bees consume the
honey. Tacks on the clamps will always be sure to prevent sticking.
Before you waste any time in making small holes, for fear the bees will
be drowned in the large ones, try a float made as directed. In one
corner of the box, fasten with the melted mixture, a thin strip of wood,
about one inch wide; let it project above the top of the box about an
inch, and be kept about half an inch from the bottom; this answers as a
spout for pouring the honey into the feeder, and when not in use, it
should be stopped up. Have for the lid of the box, a piece of glass with
the corner cut off next the spout, so as to cover the feeder and keep
the bees in, and at the same time allow the bee-keeper to see when they
have consumed all their food. The feeder is now complete, with one
important exception; it has, as yet no way of admitting the bees. On the
outside corners of one of the ends, glue or tack two strips, inch and a
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