American ^ee Journal I 



> — — — — I ^^ 



.--^^T^-^ 



confirmed my opinion that wax scales, 

 when first exuded from the abdomen 

 of the bee, are always of a pearly white- 

 ness, which readily changes by contact 

 with other objects, especially pollen 

 dust. 



I saw wax works and wax paintings 

 of the very highest finish ; among 

 others portraits of Aristotle and Soc- 

 rates in relief wax. I there found also 

 that the patron saint of beekeepers is 

 Saint Ambrose, bishop of Milan in 310 

 A. D. An interesting statement for 

 lovers of antiquities! 



From the Rosenberg one has a mag- 

 nificent view. The little city of Zug is 

 under your feet, the lake beyond, the 

 mountains in the distance on all sides 

 as well as behind. It is an orchard 

 country, and the trees, hundreds of 

 years old, are of great size. 



Our next visit, on the afternoon of 

 the same day, was to Dr. Brunnich, our 

 interesting contributor, a most capable 

 microscopist. He speaks French and 

 German with almost equal ease. He 

 also speaks and writes English. His 

 home isat Oberwil, a mile or two south 

 of the city. It is reached by boat on 

 the Lake of Zug, but we walked across 

 the meadows and orchards from the 

 Rosenberg. 



Instead of smoke, Dr. Brunnich used 

 • a gentle water spray over the bees. It 

 appeared to be as etlicient as smoke, 

 and he holds that it is preferable. 



I saw a number of interesting things 

 in his apiary. First of all is his method 

 of marking the queens, described by 

 him at the request of our subscribers 

 on page 200 of our June number. A 

 very small spot is dropped on the cors- 

 let, where it dries instantly. The queen 

 is marked either right or left or on the 

 center as may be desired. This little 

 red spot is quickly seen, when the comb 

 IS raised, and helps wonderfully in find- 

 ing her. I take pride in being able to 

 find queens as readily as any one. But 

 with this method of marking, there is 

 no need of great practice. Dr. Brun- 

 nich says that in many instances peo- 

 ple are deceived in the results of a 

 queen introduction because the queen 

 introduced has not been sufficiently 

 marked. With this method there is 

 little room, if any, for error. 



Mr. Brunnich has tried the experi- 

 ment made by others as well as by my- 

 self of giving a natural swarm a hive 

 entirely filled with drone-comb, to as- 

 certain whether bees would change or 

 rebuild the comb. The only thing they 

 did was to narrow down the mouth of 

 the cells to worker size, when the 

 queen proceeded to lay worker eggs 

 in them. This result has thus far been 

 universal in a trial of this kind. It 

 positively disproves the assertion that 

 bees do tear down one kind of comb to 

 rebuild it in another. The only in- 

 stances of this have been where the 

 comb was moldy or in some manner 

 damaged. 



But the most interesting part of Dr. 

 Brunnich's entertainment was his 

 microscopical work. I was very sorry 

 to be only a novice in microscopic 

 studies. But I saw enough to perceive 

 that his work is of the most accurate 

 character. His explanation and ex- 

 hibit of the salivary glands by magni- 

 fied photographs were most interesting. 

 There has long been a difference of 



vom SRosenberg Zug 



Jos. Theri.I.e'i 

 *— Ziiff '- 



opinion among entomologists upon 

 the production of the pap or royal jelly 

 which is fed to queens during both 

 their larval and insect life, and to the 

 workers in the early larval stages. 

 Cheshire, after Schiemenz and Leuck- 

 art, held that it is produced by a pair of 

 salivary glands which exist in the 

 worker bee and not in the queen and 

 drone. Others hold the view that this 

 pap is produced by the chyle stomach 

 of the worker bees and is properly 

 chyle food. Dr. Brunnich has tried 

 feeding the nurse bees with honey col- 

 ored with lamp black, and the larval 

 pap produced by those bees was en- 

 tirely devoid of any dark color. He 

 deduces, from that, that the larval food 

 is not a production of the chyle 

 stomach. 



It was our intention to go to Mett- 

 menstetten the same evening, to the 

 home of Mr. Huber, who had invited 

 us beforehand and had kindly accom- 

 panied us on this Zug visit. We, there- 

 fore, left the Brunnich home after bid- 

 ding adieu to the Doctor and his pleas- 



ant family, with an invitation to visit 

 us in America. In less than half an 

 hour we were at Mettmenstetten, where 

 we spent the following day. 



Mr. Huber, who is, as I said, a bee- 

 keeper and a cutler, is also a practical 

 farmer. He was intent upon showing 

 us the curiosities of this part of Switz- 

 erland, and announced to us that he 

 would take us in his carriage to some 

 grottoes 10 miles away. We were to 

 start early in the morning. However, 

 as they had but one horse and his son 

 announced to me that they had just 

 one more wagon load of hay to bring 

 in, as the end of the hay harvest, I took 

 it for granted that they must first haul 

 in the hay. But the carriage was ready 

 and at the door before we had finished 

 our breakfast. I said: "What about 

 your hay ?" " Oh, they have gone after 

 it long ago." " But I thought you had 

 only one horse ?" "We don't haul hay 

 with the horse; we hitch up the cows." 

 And sure enough, in came the load of 

 hay with two fine cows pulling it up to 

 the barn. During that day we saw not 



Home of Dr. Brunnich. 



