April, 1914, 



125 



"i^m^^ 



American Hee Joarnafl 



and called upon a former inhabitant of 

 the United States, Mr. Gallet, who is 

 carrying on a business in Lyon, and 

 whom we had met before. He was 

 courteous enough to put himself and 

 his automobile at our disposal. We 

 went out the next day to the Agricul- 

 tural School of Ecully, near Lyon, 

 where Mr. V'ibert has classes in bee- 

 culture regularly during the summer. 

 The apiary is small, as will be seen 

 from the picture. But all sorts of 

 hives are kept. Mr. Vibert is the gen- 

 tleman on the right. Much good is 

 certainly secured from these courses 

 in bee-culture. We are glad to find 

 that they are also becoming numerous 

 in American colleges. 



A little later we visited a large api- 

 ary, some 10 miles away, about i(0 colo- 

 nies of Carniolans, Italians and com- 



Mr. Mont-Jovet. 



mon bees, mixed. The owner, an old 

 gentleman over 71 years old, insisted 

 on treating us to a honey preparation 

 of his own make, a sort of metheglin. 

 .But it was fermenting so strongly that 

 when the cork was liberated it went 

 like a gun shot, and the bottle emptied 

 itself before anything could be done 

 with the contents. Foaming cham- 

 pagne was nothing in comparison. .^ 

 second bottle gave the same result, and 

 much to his regret he finally had to 

 treat us on clear water, for we would 

 not accept of wine. 



I saw there how easily people de- 

 ceive themselves when trying to make 

 rules of accidental experiences. He 

 had a good crop of honey, but not a 

 single colony with more than one su- 

 per. Upon enquiry, I found that he 

 had only once tried to put a second 

 super under the first. The bees had 

 carried the honey down, probably be- 

 cause the crop was at an end. But he 

 had concluded from his one experi- 

 ence that it would never do to use 

 more than one super on a hive at a 

 time. How many of us, who laugh at 

 this queer idea, will make the same 

 mistake of establishing a rule on a 

 single exception ? 



Another peculiar thing I noticed 



here. His honey-house had no win- 

 dow in it. So he has to leave the door 

 open when extracting honey or manip- 

 ulating his implements. But though 

 we laugh at these extraordinary condi- 

 tions, we remember that this is a coun- 

 try of long established stone buildings, 

 that they do not build anything tem- 

 porarily, and that they, for that reason, 

 hesitate a great deal before making 

 any changes to existing conditions. 

 The wonder should be that they prog- 

 ress as much as they do. 



This old gentleman was cured of 

 rheumatism by bee stings in 1871, or 

 42 years ago. He was not then ac- 

 quainted with bee-culture, and was in- 

 duced to practice it because of this 

 trouble. He asserted to me that he 

 was now better able to work than he 

 was at 30. However, he is not entirely 

 free of the disease, and perhaps the 

 active outdoor life has had as much to 

 do with his improvement as the effect 

 of the bee poison. 



He was very proud of his Carniolan 

 bees, and said that they were even 

 more peaceable than the Italians. 



From numerous chestnut trees in the 

 vicinity the bees harvest honey, which, 

 I was informed, is of very bad quality. 

 White melilot, locust and sainfoin are 

 the main honey producers. 



The next day, before leaving the city, 

 we found time to visit the Chamber of 

 Commerce and the Museum of Tissues, 

 where we saw silk tissues dating back 

 several centuries, and costumes of the 

 time of Louis XIV. We finally left 

 our kind guides to continue our way. 

 We were given a pressing invitation to 

 come back upon our return from Italy. 

 Mr. Vibert assured us that if we prom- 

 ised to stop there again, he would ar- 

 range a banquet with 7.5 beekeepers of 

 that region. But it was out of the 

 question. 



On the way to Albertville, Savoy, we 

 had an unexpected and interesting in- 

 stance of the popularity of the Ameri- 

 can methods of bee-culture in the coun- 

 try at large. .'M Chambery we had to 

 change train. Two country ladies, 

 loaded with bundles, came into our 



compartment, and I had occasion to 

 help them in. We had a chat with 

 them, and when they found out that we 

 were from America and interested in 

 bee-culture, one of them said : " My 

 father kept bees by the American meth- 

 ods and used the Dadant hive." I took 

 a visiting card out of my pocket and 

 handed it to her. Great was her aston- 

 ishment to find that I was the man 

 whose name she had just spoken. Yet, 

 we have never, so far, sold a bee-hive in 

 Europe. All the influence upon Euro- 

 pean bee-culture has been secured 

 through the publishing of the transla- 

 tions of the Revised Langstroth book. 

 Only two or three are pushing the sale 

 of American goods on the Continent. 

 The French edition of Root's "ABC" 

 is now helping the work begun by the 

 Revised Langstroth. 



In the September number, we have 

 already spoken of our visit to Albert- 

 ville. I wish to insist on the advis- 

 ability, for our beekeepers, to push the 

 sale of honey in a manner similar to 

 that followed by Mr. Mont-Jovet, fur- 

 nishing it to hotels put up in individ- 

 ual packages of a tenth of a pound. 

 The paper packages containing it are 

 almost identical with those used by 

 Mr. Pouder, described on page 10 of 

 our January number. Granulated ex- 

 tracted honey is almost always the kind 

 supplied. It may be found in almost 

 every hotel of Savoy or of Switzerland. 

 At the prices mentioned to us of $2.50 

 per hundred packages, it proves con- 

 venient to the hotel keeper and suffi- 

 ciently profitable to the beekeeper, 

 since it serves as a very efficient adver- 

 tising medium for his product. 



Mont-Jovet is a practical man, a 

 dealer, as well as a large producer. In 

 queen-breeding he has tried the isola- 

 tion plan, so much praised by German- 

 Swiss apiarists, as we will see later. 

 He has proven to conclusion that 

 queens and drones often mate at 4 kilo- 

 meters, 2^ miles. He has known them 

 to mate at ti kilometers. This tallies 

 with our own experience at home. Of 

 course, in a mountainous country, the 

 result may be quite dissimilar from 



Mr. and Mr*;. Mont-Jovkt Looking for a Queen. 



