THE AMERICAN APIGULTURIST. 



83 



istecl in tlie queen's spermatlieca 

 the whole of her life, less from five 

 to ten da^'s, between which ages 

 queens almost invariably mate. 



SOMETHING NEW FROM 

 GERMANY. 



By L. Stachelhausen. 



It might be of interest to the 

 readers of the "Apiculturist" to 

 learn what discoveries and observa- 

 tions have been made of late in 

 Germany regarding beekeeping. I 

 will here relate, therefore, what 

 seems to me to be the most impor- 

 tant. 



1. Under certain circumstances 

 it may be of importance to prevent 

 the building of drone comb without 

 the use of too much comb founda- 

 tion. One prefers to let swarms 

 build fall combs rather than to fur- 

 nish them with comb foundation, 

 because as a rule they build nice 

 worker comb. But unusually 

 strong colonies, later on, build more 

 drone comb. At such times I use 

 comb foundation, but the partially 

 completed combs are now finished 

 with drone comb. The apiarist 

 must therefore replace this with 

 comb foundation, which is a very 

 laborious task consuming much 

 time. Mr. A. Zimmerman has 

 recently observed that if he cuts 

 away drone comb, that has been 

 commenced, to the worker brood 

 and then shaves off both sides of 

 the comb to the edges (V-shaped) 



the bees will replace and complete 

 it with worker comb. 



2. The invention of Mr. Z611 

 (of Everdorf, near Kissingen),who 

 has succeeded in constructing whole 

 combs with full-depth cells, is per- 

 haps of more practical importance. 

 In the fall of 1880 even, such combs 

 were to be seen at the exhibition 

 at Frankfort-on-the Main. They 

 are said to have been very much 

 heavier than natural combs ; but 

 in this the first steps have been 

 taken which will lead in time doubt- 

 less to the improvement of the 

 established method. 



What influence the invention will 

 have in practical beekeeping, I am 

 unable to judge, and I know nothing 

 concerning the method of making 

 such comb. 



3. Another invention has been 

 made by E. von Freyberg, namely, 

 that of the artificial capping of 

 natural cells filled with honey. One 

 can by this method save the bees 

 the labor of doing this, and late 

 in the fall such combs can be given 

 to the bees for winter stores. Very 

 likely this affords other advan- 

 tages. The cells of the horizontal- 

 ly lying comb are filled with warm 

 honey or sugar syrup ; then a sheet 

 of white filtering paper, on one side 

 of which warm wax has been 

 spread, should be placed wax side 

 down upon the comb ; on this lay 

 several sheets of paper and then 

 over this pass a warm iron lightly. 



Upon removing the extra sheets 

 of paper, you will find that the 

 waxed paper is stuck fast on the 

 comb. 



By a method recommended sev- 



