I go: 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



69 



Extracted clover honey brings about 

 J5 to 30 cents per pound in Germany. 



The leading German bee-keepers 

 have a good deal to say about us Amer- 

 icans wintering so poorly. Indeed, it's 

 generally believed that we have not yet 

 learned to master this problem. From 

 all that is said, one would be led to 

 think that the German bee-keepers un- 

 derstand the matter in all its details, 

 and are generallj' successful in winter- 

 ing their bees. The fact however, is 

 they seem to have as much, or more, 

 trouble than we have. The wintering 

 question. I find, little discussed in Am- 

 erican journals. It is not a burnii/g 

 question any more. On the other hand 

 every German journal devotes page af- 

 ter page to this subject, lamenting over 

 the many bees dying with dysentery, b}' 

 suffocation or lack of water to quench 

 their thirst. (The German bee-keepers 

 seem to be very thirsty souls themselves 

 and evidetly think their bees have an 

 equal weakness: at any rate their win- 

 ter arrangements are not complete un- 

 less their bees are furnished a bottle.) 



It is a great mistake, says Melzer, in 

 Central Blatt. to suppose that stunted 

 or dwarfed blossoms of red clover will 

 ever secrete nectar and thus enable the 

 bees to work on clover to advantage. 

 Such blossoms furnish no honey. When 

 bees gather honey from red clover 

 blossoms, either the nectar has risen to 

 within their reach, or bumblebees and 

 other insects have first cut holes through 

 the long tubes at their bases, which 

 they often do to obtain the sweets. 



Dr. Donhof writes in Illustr. Flora 

 that a queen-bee larva increases 1.500 

 times its weight during the first five 

 days of its life, and should an infant in- 

 crease in weight at that same rate the 

 child would weigh anywhere between 

 9.000 and 12,000 pounds when five days 

 old. 



F- Dickel explains in "Die Biene," 

 the advantages and disadvantages of 

 early and frequent flights of bees dur- 

 ing winter. He rather favors a steady 

 winter with no flights and thinks if 

 bees can be kept quiet and undisturbed, 

 there w ill be no breeding and little con- 

 sumption of honey, both very desirable 

 and conducive to good wintering. 

 Then, when spring comes, they will 

 nuickly breed up and develop into prof- 

 itable colonies. 



The American system of bee-keeping 

 and in particular our American hives 



are often severely criticised in German 

 bee iournals. Mr. Stachelhausen and 

 myself have at different times defended 

 and explained our system and tried to 

 show the German readers wherein the 

 advantages of our hives lie. It seems 

 these efforts have been effective, at 

 least, in a measure. I find, that the 

 hive.s accessible from the top are on 

 the increase. The Gerstung hive is 

 making many friends- A straw hiv^ 

 with open top for tiering up, fitted uj^ 

 with frames has been described within 

 a few years, etc. Four or five years 

 ago I explained a system of comb- 

 honey production by the help of shal- 

 low*, small brood-chambers in one of 

 Germany's bee journals. I scarcely had 

 hopes anyone in Germany would 

 think of trying it, but, on the 

 contrary, I find that just now a shal- 

 low-chamber hive is coming to the 

 front, somewhat similar to the Heddon 

 and Danzenbaker hives. Unfortunately 

 the iiiventor has seen fit to follow his 

 own ideas in the construction of that 

 hive, instead of patterning closely after 

 such„ as had been built by American 

 bee-masters and found good. The re- 

 sult will be a waste of material and la- 

 bor, also dissatisfaction on the part of 

 those buying and trying such faulty 

 hives. The ordinary square edge of our 

 hives did not suit the inventor; his hive 

 telescopes and thus forms a veritable 

 bee-trap, a regular bee-killer. The 

 frames of his hive are of the fixed-dis- 

 tance order, but have not, like the Hed- 

 don. closed ends. However, they fit 

 tightly into the hive endw-ise. As long 

 as the hive is new or has no bees in it, 

 it will work all right, but after the bees 

 have had a chance to fix things to their 

 notion, it will be practically impossible 

 to manipulate brood-chambers and 

 frames. Yet it is claimed that it is a 

 hive for the masses, destined to make 

 bee-keeping popular, a hive easy to op- 

 erate, etc. 



AUSTRIA. 



From Bienenvater (Vienna): Koller 

 asserts that buckwheat honey produces 

 dj'sentery in winter, but other bee-keep- 

 ers do not agree with him. Dzierzon 

 pronounces it the very best winter food, 

 and the bees of the writer are wintered 

 every year largely on such honey with- 

 out any bad results. 



F. Greiner. 



