368 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



June 15 



BEE-KEEPING IN HOLLAND. 



BY HENRI MEYER. 



Duriny; the last three years bee-keepers in 

 our country have had several severe lessons. 

 They have patience, however, for they fix 

 their hopes on the promise of better times in 

 the future. Since I became an amateur bee- 

 keeper I have become acquainted with many 

 good but nennywise and conservative Dutch 

 bee-men from whose mistakes I have learned 

 the art of bee culture. 



Though we have some good bee-farms in 

 HollancH where the work is based on modern 

 principles, there is little or no tendency 

 among the conservative men to leave the 

 methods of their grandfathers, notwithstand- 

 ing the fact that the Dutch association for 

 the propagation of bee culture is trying its 

 best to work a reform. Our grandfathers 

 swore by a sort of multiplication system 

 which is still prevalent in some parts of our 

 country. Many Dutch bee-keepers who have 

 from 50 to 100 hives on summer stands main- 

 tain from year to year the maximum number 

 of colonies from the fewest possible number 

 wintered. From grandfather to grandson 

 they endeavored to obtain as many swarms 

 as possible per colony; and to get from four 

 to six new colonies from one old one was a 

 common thing. Unconsciously a race of 

 bees was bred, the characteristics of which 

 were in the direction of swarming, and for 

 this reason all methods for the prevention of 

 that tendency must naturally lead to failure. 

 The degeneration of the bee race, in my opin- 

 ion, is one of the reasons why some of these 

 old bee-keepers, willing to try the movable 



DUTCH SWARM SPECIALISTS INSl'lH IING THE BARGAINS AT THE BEE-MAR- 

 KET IN HOLLAND. 

 Hives with bees and honey sell for $2.00 each. 



frames in hives of large dimensions, obtain- 

 ed negative results, and then cheerfully re- 

 turned totheirgrandfathers' thin small straw 

 hives. They saw no possibility of keeping 

 their record-breaking swarmers quietly at 

 work during two or three good honey-flows, 

 for all the honey that came in was converted 

 into brood; and when the colony developed 

 to the maximum strength it gave off the in- 

 evitable swarm. In such cases, at the end 

 of the season the crop consisted of a few 

 pounds of wax and a few pounds of bees, the 

 latter, however, having scarcely enough hon- 

 ey for winter stores. 



Well, these good old conservative bee- 

 keepers who advocate the swarming system 

 have learned in three consecutive bad honey 

 years what a century of their grandfathers' 

 methods could not have taught tnem. In the 

 spring of 1900 nearly all the colonies in my 

 district were in very poor condition. They 

 came through the winter with hardly a hand- 

 ful of bees, and developed very slowly, so 

 that the first swarms did not come off before 

 the end of June. Some colonies, however, 

 did not swarm at all on account of being in 

 poor condition, and these at the end of the 

 summer succeeded in reaching a gross weight 

 of 60 pounds, notwithstanding tne fact that 

 the buckwheat and heath crops were spoiled 

 by the cold and rain, and also that not more 

 than ten really favorable days could be noted 

 in the season. The colonies, however, that 

 swarmed did not get a chance to recover 

 from so great a loss of the working force. 



It can be seen how penny-wise and pound- 

 foolish these conservative bee-men are. In- 

 stead of wintering the colonies that did not 

 swarm, and that succeeded in getting plenty 



of winter 

 stores, they 

 kill them to 

 get the honey, 

 which honey 

 is, of course, 

 of poor quali- 

 ty on account 

 i)f the irregu- 

 larity of the 

 flows. From 

 the weak col- 

 onies they 

 choose those 

 to winter over. 

 Is it not a cu- 

 rious fact that, 

 in a country 

 where selec- 

 tion and mu- 

 tation theories 

 are so well 

 known, thanks 

 to our world- 

 famed Profes- 

 sor Hugo de 

 V^ries, the se- 

 lection theory 

 in bee culture 

 should be so 

 grossly neg- 

 lected? 



