1909 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE 



595 



plv. The larger portion of all the colonies is 

 taken up every year. They are not neces- 

 sarily brimstonea, for generally the bees are 

 driven or drummed out and sold to less for- 

 tunate bee-keepers without a late flow, who 

 not unfrequently need bees to strengthen 

 their depopulated colonies. Lehzen, the 

 president of the Deutsche Imkerbund, says, 

 m Hannover alone as many as 400,000 naked 

 swarms are for sale every year. 



When the hives are freed from bees they 

 are shipped to some great city. The owner, 

 of course, takes them himself. In the city 

 he hires a small room on some back street 

 where he establishes himself and his work- 

 shop. Every day some combs are cut from 

 the hives which have answered him as ship- 

 ping-cases. The honey is sorted, and deftly 

 placed in wooden nickel-trimmed trays. 

 With one of these on his shoulder or head he 

 starts out in white and spotless attire, going 

 on the streets crying, "Honey! honey! hon- 

 ey!" The people seem anxious to buy this 

 honey, and as soon as a tray is empty anoth- 

 er one is brought out or the empty one filled 

 up again. In this way the honey is disposed 

 or; and when the contents of the last hive 

 have been cut out, all are then shipped back, 

 and are ready for the next campaign. 



When compared with our often complicat- 

 ed methods we shall not be surprised if we 

 can not persuade these bee-keepers of Han- 

 nover, Holstein, etc, to invest in sectional 

 or Aspinwall hives, hive-lifters, section-cases, 

 extractors, etc.; and yet if he had to face 

 American competition with Amprican condi- 

 tions he would have to change his sails or go 

 under. 



EUROPEAN FRAMES. 



In other parts of Germany and Austria the 

 conditions are different from the above, and 

 frame hives and refined management have 

 become necessary. A very narrow frame 

 has been and is yet very popular. It was 

 claimed by Dzierzon and other advocates that 

 such a frame would act as a brood-restrictor. 

 Only few gave a frame approaching the Lang- 

 stroth a trial. Gerstung is among the latter. 

 The following gives his idea and his concep- 

 tion of the working of the different frames: 

 "The honey-bee inclines to form a cluster 

 globular in shape. The honey appears in 

 the upper part of the comb and around the 

 brood. In a very narrow hive the honey is 

 found above the brood only, and is thus 

 forced into the so-called honey-chamber. A 

 very shallow hive has the effect that the first 

 honey goes into the super; and if perfect 

 comb honey is desired it is a good plan to 

 use half-story frames above, holding about 

 three pounds. Two little uprights may be 

 used to divide the shallow 3-lb. frame into 

 three parts; and when these are filled the 

 combs may be cut out and left to drain, then 

 wrapped up in waxed paper, and thus brought 

 into the market. It is imperative that but 

 very small pieces of comb foundation be used 

 for starters, in order not to make the result- 

 ing honey unpalatable." 



It will be se' n that Gerstung and we here 

 in America are not so far apart. If his hon- 



ey-flow and the conditions surrounding him 

 were like ours, his hive and his methods of 

 handling bees might have developed on ex- 

 actly parallel lines. 



Kuchenmueller, another German authori- 

 ty, has constructed a sectional hive with not 

 Quite so shallow a frame as is used by Hed- 

 don, Aikin, and Hand; however, his manag- 

 ment does not tally with ours, owing to the 

 different conditions and demands of the pro- 

 ducing and consuming public. He has this 

 to say about the management of bees in his 

 hive: " Every colony should occupy the cen- 

 tral portion of the hive at the beginning of 

 the season. When the colony begins to ex- 

 pand, the tendency is more downward than 

 upward; and two stories with foundation- 

 filled frames are placed under the brood- 

 nest, and this is the whole, and all that needs 

 doing that season, except taking away the 

 honey in the upper portion of the hive. The 

 queen, following her inclination, soon fills 

 the new combs below with brood, the upper 

 set or sets of combs answering for what they 

 are best fitted — the storing of the incoming 

 honey." 



CROSSING DIFFERENT STRAINS OF BEES. 



To have young queens in as many hives as 

 possible is not so generally indorsed by Euro- 

 pean bee-keepers as by our Americans. In 

 Switzerland they lay great stre s on colonies 

 superseding timely, without any attention from 

 the bee-keeper. They think they have de- 

 veloped or are developing a strain of black 

 bees that may be relied upon to do so. I 

 know of some bee-keepers here who have 

 procured bees of this strain, and it would be 

 interesting to know how the bees have be- 

 haved. 



The heath-bee, which has been mentioned 

 above, is a strain of the black bee, which, in 

 the course of years, has developed the swarm- 

 ing tendency in a high degree, somewhat 

 like the Carniolan. Herr Lehzen, whom I 

 quoted before, says that the heath bee is ex- 

 cellent for crossing with the common blacks, 

 the resulting cross being exceedingly vigor- 

 ous. He claims that the swarmmg habit 

 soon disappears when conditions change. 

 With the Carniolan stock when used for cross- 

 ing this is not so here with us. Wherever 

 there was a trace of this blood our bees would 

 swarm excessively. I doubt whether we in 

 America have had any experience with the 

 heath bee to warrant our passing an opinion. 



SHAKING ENERGY INTO BEES. 



Lehzen says, by moving apiaries into the 

 heath (a very common practice in Northern 

 Germany) , the occurring crossing with the 

 drones from the heath bee is very oeneficial, 

 as it dispels laziness. At the same time he 

 says that the moving itself has a beneficial 

 influence, shaking energy into the bees, as 

 we have termed it — an idea advanced by dif- 

 ferent bee-keepers here — Scholl and others. 

 I found, many years ago, when we transfer- 

 red bees from box hives by the old method, 

 that the operation had an invigorating effect 

 upon a colony so treated for that season. I 

 had marvelous yields from them at that time. 



