734 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Oct. 1. 



not do as well at harvest time as one a little bit 

 smaller. If we know what the best size is, it 

 will be easy to avoid trouble, for there are usu- 

 ally colonies too small that might be strength- 

 ened from the overgrown ones ; and even if all 

 were too large, it would be an easy matter to 

 destroy the surplus population each spring. 



WILL, QTJEENS KEEP GOING BACK AND FORTH 

 FROM ONE STORY TO ANOTHER '? 



I continue to be misquoted in Gleanings, to 

 the effect that I found queens would not breed 

 properly in two sections of a hive at the same 

 time. I do not remember to have ever said any 

 thing of the kind. Indeed, I have always said 

 that I had no difficulty in that direction, ahd 

 that my queens went readily of their own ac- 

 cord from one story to another. I think the 

 misunderstanding came from my reporting that, 

 when I confined a 'queen in an upper story to 

 oblige her to lay there, she utterly refused to do 

 any thing of the kind — quite a different thing 

 from the other. 



You may remember that C. A. Hatch said his 

 bees would go from the lower to the upper sto- 

 ry, but would not go down again, and I could 

 not understand why mine should act so differ- 

 ently. Afterward I thought it might be that 

 his top and bottom bars were such as to form a 

 barrier across which the queen would not pass, 

 while in my case a space of nearly an inch be- 

 tween the two allowed the bees to fill in a lot of 

 comb in which the queen could lay and then 

 easily pass to the other story. 



But the question came up whether my queens 

 would act in the same way with my new frames 

 having top and bottom bars each 1^ inches 

 wide, having respectively a thickness of % and 

 }4' thus making, with the M inch between them, 

 a space of l^s inches without any comb, across 

 which the queen must pass to get from one sto- 

 ry to the other. Despairing of success without 

 some special means, I studied a good deal upon 

 the matter, and finally made connection be- 

 tween the two stories by means of two dummies 

 of inch stuff, the lower dummy having a il-^ 

 section of comb in its upper part, and the upper 

 one having a section in its lower part, one plac- 

 ed in the hive directly over the other, no wood 

 between the combs in the two sections, and a 14" 

 space between them. The bees promptly join- 

 ed the two sections together, and the queen 

 passed back and forth as I expected. 



In order to compare, I tried one colony with- 

 out this special help, and by some means the 

 queen went in a short time from the upper to 

 the lower story. Then, to give the matter a 

 pretty full test, I put seven colonies on these 

 frames in two stories. The combs were new, 

 the colonies not overly strong, and there was no 

 likelihood that in any case they would occupy 

 more than eight combs. 80 I put four combs in 

 the upper story and four combs in the lower 

 story, leaving the queen in the upper story. If 



I found eggs in the lower story after four or 

 more days, then I would know to a certainty 

 that the queen had gone below. 



One colony was so weak that the queen could 

 occupy only about three frames; and as these 

 were all in the upper story, it was not strange 

 she did not go below. Another remained in the 

 upper story without going below, and I feel 

 pretty sure she would have occupied more 

 combs if they had all been in the upper story. 

 As to the rest, however, the queens seemed to 

 occupy one story as well as the other, altogeth- 

 er against my expectation. For instance, Aug. 

 22 I found, in No. 36, eggs in both stories ; and 

 also Aug. 26 I found eggs in both stories. That 

 shows clearly that, during the week of Aug. 19 

 — 26, the queen must have made at least three 

 changes from one story to the other. So I feel 

 pretty sure that, as a rule, the queen will occu- 

 py two stories about as well as one, if the room 

 in one story is not sufficient. 



The question still remains, " Why do Brother 

 Hatch's bees act so differently from mine?" I 

 am wondering if it isn't just possible that his 

 queens had so much room in the upper story 

 that they did not feel the need of going down. 



Marengo, 111. 



[Yes, your last sentence probably hits the key 

 to the whole situation. How is it, Bro. Hatch? 

 -Ed.1 



EUROPEAN MATTERS. 



THE FORTIETH CONVENTION AT LEIPZIG; KING 

 ALBERT AND THE BEE KEEPERS; THE IN- 

 TERNATIONAL BEE-KEEPERS' CONGRESS AT 

 PARIS; AN 82-CENT FOUNDATION-PRESS IN 

 GERMANY. 



By Charles Norman. 



On and after the 10th of Augu=;t, the fortieth 

 convention of the German, Austrian, and Hun- 

 garian bee-keepers took place at Leipzig, king- 

 dom of Saxony. As that well-known German 

 bee-master, Mr. Gravenhorst. usually reports 

 to you on these conventions. I restrict myself 

 to a few remarks. There were over 1.500 par- 

 ticipants present — a number unheard of at o^lr 

 conventions— and the whole affair was a great 

 success. King Albert, of Saxony, who had 

 accepted the protectorate over the convention, 

 made his appearance for an hour or two, and 

 was honored as only monarchs are honored by 

 their humble subjects. He was cheered at and 

 cheered at; he was. wherever he stepped, sur- 

 rounded by the happy bee-keepers, "like the 

 queen-bee by her bees;" he was "speeched at" 

 by several orators, one of whom even spoke of 

 "us Saxons to whom our king is the star and 

 pride of our life." I wonder what climax this 

 man would have come to had he had to address 

 the highest German monarch, the emperor. 



Well, great as the success of the convention 

 was. yet one German reporter says that the 

 German-Austrian reversible honey-extractors 



