THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW, 



311 



n.. .8 the bees to remove it. The sugges- 

 tion is made that this would be a good way 

 of treating brood in sections without ppoil- 

 ing them. 



Pierre Odier gives an interesting account 

 of a visit to the apiary of a bee- keeper who 

 is blind and crippled, This man, Benja- 

 min Imseng by name, has never had any- 

 thing read to him about bees, but has gain- 

 ed a good part of his knowledge from his 

 own experience. He lives at the village of 

 Saas-Fee, Valais, Switzerland near a glacier, 

 at an elevation of iWi feet. His bees are 

 partly Carniolans, but mainly a cross be- 

 tween Caruiolans and natives. His pure 

 Carniolans swarm, but the hybrids very little. 

 He has tried Italians, but has found them 

 cross, and not well able to bear the cold 

 winters, 22" to 31^ F. below zero being not 

 infrequent, and the snow remaining on the 

 ground eight months of the year. Another 

 result of the altitude is that the wax-moth is 

 unknown. 



His method of finding the queen to be kill- 

 ed when he wishes to unite two colonies may 

 be remembered as a variant in difficult 

 cases. The hive is first removed from its 

 place, then a frame filled with syrup substi- 

 tuted for one of the side frames, from which 

 the bees are shaken back into the hive. 

 When the comb containing syrup is covered 

 with bees, they are shaken off into the 

 colony with which they are to be united. 

 The remaining combs are treated in like 

 manner until the last is reached, on which 

 the queen is sure to be found, as she avoids 

 the one containing syrup. At this point his 

 blindness obliges him to kill all the bees on 

 the last comb, to make sure of the queen. 



He judges of the amount gathered from 

 day to day by means of a very primitive 

 weighing-machine, with which he can esti- 

 mate weights as low as between three and 

 four ounces. A plank is balanced on a tri- 

 angular straight-edge. The hive is placed 

 on one end of the plank, and stones of known 

 weight near the other end, at a point which 

 is as far from that end as half the width of 

 the hive. 



BiENEN — Vatee, — A clear case of two 

 young laying queens living peaceably to- 

 gether is given by Wilhelm Schultze. The 

 old queen was removed on the 12th of June; 

 queen-cells were built, and on the 7th of 

 July a young queen was laying. On the 

 28th of July two young queens were seen, 

 the hive being nearly full of brood. The 



colony was then divided, with a queen in 

 each part, since which both queens have 

 continued to lay. 



Two reversible extractors have lately been 

 illustrated and described in the Bienen- 

 Vater. Both have the motive power applied 

 below. When one stops to think about it, 

 the transverse bar at the top of an extract- 

 or is really a good deal of an annoyance. 

 To the operator standing in front of the 

 machine, with the axle which turns the cog- 

 wheel opposite his right hand, only one of 

 the baskets is presented in a convenient 

 position to receive the combs. The other 

 or others must be brought up to the proper 

 place, where they are not inclined to stay, 

 the weight of the handle impelling the reel 

 to its former position. Any object, such as 

 a piece of a comb, which accidentally falls 

 in the extractor, is not to be removed with- 

 out much stickiness and unpleasantness. 

 When the extractor is non- reversing and the 

 gearing above, the frames must be lifted 

 clear out to be reversed, whereas with no 

 gearing or central rod in the way they can 

 be reversed in the reel, without lifting 

 them up. The absence of a central rod, and 

 stays above, no doubt makes the lower parts 

 more expensive, in order to be sufficiently 

 solid; but with the above annoyance remov- 

 ed, one who extracts a ton of honey could 

 well afford to pay a little more. 



The two extractors referred to are pro- 

 vided with legs which are long enough to 

 raise the can to the usual height above the 

 floor, to which they are screwed, and to be 

 fastened to both the upper aud lower rims 

 of the can; In this way they form a unit 

 with the can, and stay so, and make prob- 

 ably the simplest form of support. Rigid- 

 ity of the legs is secured, in one of the 

 machines, by making them of iron shaped 

 like T-tins; in the other, by making them of 

 wood. 



Leipzigeb Bienenzeitung. — Herr Schlick- 

 um uses a " cement " press ( likely plaster 

 of Paris ) which consists of two leaves, pre- 

 sumably hinged together, each one having a 

 metal rim very slightly elevated above the 

 general surface. It is soaked in water for 

 five or six hours before using, then placed 

 on a table, which is kept constantly wet. 

 The melted wax is poured on the lower leaf, 

 and the upper one brought down by the left 

 hand without particular pressure, its own 

 weight sufficing. The press is then dipped 

 in water, laid on the table in the same po- 



