MEAT FOR SPRING FEEDING
By Chas Hofmaster 1922 AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL
I had heard it before, but paid little attention to it. But this winter I was told again by two trustworthy parties about feeding bees in early spring with boiled meat. An old lady told me that her father, who kept a few hives of bees, regularly, at the first warm spell every spring, killed a chicken, cleaned it and boiled it very tender, then sprinkled it liberally with salt and hung it up near his bees. She said she saw that suspended chicken so thickly covered with bees as to resemble almost a hanging swarm of bees. And the bees stayed with it till there was nothing left but the bare skeleton . An old man, who kept until a few years ago, a number of hives himself, told me a similar story. But instead of chicken, he used rabbits, prepared similarly. He said the first rabbit, to attract the bees, must be rubbed with salt or meal, it does not matter which, but afterwards such baiting is not necessary. He said he preferred this way of feeding to that of sugar syrup, as it does not induce robbing. He says the bees just swarm to it, but quit as soon there is as plenty of pollen and hone y to be had. Now , how about it? I don't care much about experimenting with my bees, as they have plenty of stores , but I may try it at the proper time, just long enough to observe the action of the bees on it. There can be no doubt of their eating the boiled meat , but I would hardly expect them to store such stuff in their combs like pollen . Lean meat being a nitrogenous substance, would seem to be only a substitute for pollen, but my informant is positive he carried starving colonies by his method nicely over until nature provided for them again.
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