May- 1913. 



American Hee Journal 



'I'llE BURKI JECKER HiVE USED IN GERMAN-SWITZERLAND. 



Giielph, Ont., if it isn't there already. 



Mr. Simmins found tiie soft sugar in 

 the English markets. It is in the 

 United States markets, and if Mr. Byer 

 rustles around I reckon he will find it 

 ill the Canadian markets. 



Now I will go and wash the sticki- 

 ness from my lingers and leave you to 

 dabble in the sugar by yourselves. 



Providence, R. I. 



Swiss Bees and Bee-Keepers 



BY UR. BRUNiNlcH 

 DIFFERENT KINDS OF BEE-KEEPING. 



WE MAY DISTINGUISH here 

 three kinds of bee-keeping : 1. 

 The bee-culture of our J'rencJi 

 speaking contrymen. They have 

 in general the large Dadant 

 hive, similar to the American style of 

 hives. Their chief honey sources are 

 the woods with the fir "abies pecti- 

 nata." which yield a great amount of 

 honey-dew. Their bees consist chiefly 

 of hybrids. The endeavors at queen- 

 rearing are not marked. The honey is, 

 as a rule, of dark color and slight 

 aromn, but the quantity is considerable. 

 2. The bee-culture of German Switz- 

 erland. Almost all of our bee-keepers 

 have the Swiss hive, which opens at 

 the rear. The combs are parallel with 

 the entrance, the brood-chamber has 

 frames 11 inches wide and 14^2 inches 

 high. Its capacity is about 2 cubic 

 feet. We have 2 honey-chambers with 

 frames 'j to 'a the height of the brood- 

 combs. The entire hive is. therefore, 

 from 3 to 4 cubic feet. Our best honey 

 sources are dandelion and sage. In 

 Rheinau, I got my honey almost exclu- 

 sively from the sage ; less important 

 are fruit trees, sainfoin and other 

 plants. In the .Alps there are other 

 flowers, but there also the dandelion is 



the most important. Sometimes we 

 have a second crop in July from the 

 woods, and from bear's brush " herac- 

 leum." White clover is not abundant 

 here. We use no excluders, a good 

 queen not going into the supers. Our 

 favorite is the black or German bee. 

 Our methods of queen rearing are 

 from the German. 



3. The bee-culture of Italian Switzer- 

 land, Tessin, is carried on in part by 

 German methods, and in part by the 

 old method of boxes or trunks without 

 frames. In autumn the heaviest and 

 lightest colonies are brimstoned, and 

 thus the harvest is made. 



THE BLACK, ITALIAN AND CARNIOLAN BEES' 



I have an extensive e.xperience in 

 this matter, and oppose the views of 

 Mr. A. Getaz. In the beginning I 

 owned some hybrids, part of them be- 

 ing almost pure Italians. These colo- 

 nies always had much brood, without 

 being stronger than the black. Even 

 in October they had a great amount of 

 brood, and as a beginner, I was very 

 proud of them. But in spring the blacks 

 were very much stronger. I have since 

 that time made the same observations, 

 not in my apiary, but in the apiaries of 

 neighbors and friends. I also had 

 lately a colony given to me by a friend 

 in Bellinzona Tessin, in a large plain 

 box. He told me that it was the best 

 stock of bees he knew. I transferred 

 it into movable frames. It was an ex- 

 cellent colony, keeping up its breeding 

 until autumn. The colony was exceed- 

 ingly strong in summer, but in spring 

 it was always weak. Its results were 

 considerably less than those of my 

 best black bees. 



With the blacks as with the Italians, 

 the purer the stock, color, hairs, etc., 

 the better the results. There are of 

 course inferior bees in all races. It is 

 for the breeder to select the best to 



breed from. The Carniolans stand 

 much nearer the blacks than the Ital- 

 ians, and they are soon difiicult to dis- 

 tinguish from them. It is probably the 

 same race which has been influenced 

 by climate, flora, etc., of the land. 



THE INFLUENCE OF THE DRONES ON THE 

 RACE. 



Though I think the drones play an 

 iniportant part in the heredity, I be- 

 lieve that Mr. Getaz overestimates 

 them, in considering their influence as 

 above that of the queen. How could 

 we otherwise be able to explain the 

 well-known fact thata good colony con- 

 serves its characterists for 10 years or 

 more, though there be in the vicinity 

 colonies of quite another type? Truly, 

 we kno\y nothing at all about the 

 heredity in bees. It was for this rea- 

 son that I secured the Italian colony 

 above mentioned. Doubtless Mendel- 

 ism plays an important role, but the 

 experiments are difficult and intricate, 

 and it will be years before we get a re- 

 sult. The influence of the drones is 

 probably as great as that of the queens. 

 I have observed that all advanced bee- 

 keepers endeavor to breed as many 

 drones as possible from the best stock. 

 On the other hand, we believe that it 

 is necessary to have a certain number 

 of drones in each colony, or the im- 

 pulse of working is less. For these 

 reasons we do not see why 



MATING ST.\TIONS 



would not be as useful in America as 

 in Switzerland. You must have some 

 Italians that do not entirely satisfy you, 

 and every up-to-date bee-keeper would 

 wish to mate good queens with good 

 drones. 



THE SWARMING IMPULSE 



we consider as far more dependent 

 upon the race than upon the external 

 circumstances, though I will not deny 

 that the latter have a certain signifi- 

 cance. However, we have bees which 

 cannot be made to swarm under any 

 circumstance. On the other hand, it 

 is well known that it is often impossi- 

 ble to hinder some active colonies 

 from swarming. I have colonies which 

 have not swarmed for 10 years, and 

 when the queen is 3 or 4 years old she 

 is superseded without trouble. As a 

 rule, the old queen lives in the hive 

 with the young one from a few days 

 up to 11 months, as I once observed in 

 a colony of my best " Sigrun " stock. 

 Zug, Switzerland. 



Too Much Parcel Post. — Too much 



parcel post is the reason Postmaster 

 Hursh, of BranchviUe, N. J., gave for 

 resigning. " Shipments of bugs and 

 bees have made life miserable," he 

 wrote to former Postmaster Gen. 

 W\\.<:\\co<ik.— Exchange . 



Tip-Top Sections Remember, great 



warmth around the hive, a contracted 

 brood chamber occupied by an active 

 queen, and a real flow of nectar, result 

 in tip-top sections. — G. S. Oettel, in 

 South African Poultry Magazine. 



THE BEEWARE BRAND 



MEANS SUCCESS 

 INSURANCE 



Send for Annual Catalop: which will tell 

 you «ho is your neare.st Distributer. 

 G. B. l^ewis Conipnuy, V. aierto^vn, A\'ls. 



