came lighter and weaker; yet the bowels 

 were getting so loaded that when the bee 

 tried to fly it had a greater amount to carry 

 than if it had been properly fed. Some people 

 said bees were accustomed to hybernate, 

 and others said they were not. The truth 

 seemed to lie between these statements. 

 When without brood and with the ther- 

 mometer constantly at about 40° they hyber- 

 nated, but with a higher or lower tempera- 

 ture they increase in activity. He had been 

 speaking of wintering bees as though no 

 brood were present. If brood were present 

 it would be necessary to keep the tempera- 

 ture up, especially if it were near the time 

 of hatching. To sum up, he inquired, what 

 were the. causes of abdominal distension, 

 and briefly reviewed his foregoing remarks. 

 The main causes were worry on the one 

 hand, and starvation on the other. Some 

 people said their bees were not starved for 

 they had found honey in the hives, but they 

 forgot that the bees might not have been 

 able to get at the honey. How was abdomi- 

 nal distension to be prevented ? Much 

 might be done by keeping the hives dry 

 without and properly ventilating them. 

 Keeping the bees numerous, and screening 

 them from loss of temperature (which meant 

 loss of honey) and exhaustion of bee life. 



$W* The French reports are to the effect 

 that there has been much loss during the 

 winter and spring, and also that abnormal 

 swarming has been prevalent. 



Translated by Frank Benton. 



Twenty-third German Convention. 



Next to the great gathering at Halle, the 

 Twenty-third Convention of the German 

 and Austrian Bee-Culturists held last Sept. 

 10th to the 13th, in Greifswald, Pomerania, 

 is to be ranked. There were 898 present, 

 among them many of the German masters : 

 Dr. Dzierzon, Herren Dathe and Hilbert, 

 Prof. Muenter and lady, Count Behr, Pas- 

 tors Knoblauch and Rabbow, Herr Lehzen, 

 and many others being among the number. 

 After the welcome extended to all by the 

 1st President, Prof. Dr. Muenter, the "great 

 master," Dzierzon, was introduced by a 

 neat speech from Pastor Knoblauch, and 

 greeted with three hearty cheers as well as 

 a continued storm of applause. Then the 

 Mayor, Herr Hel fritz, bade the Association 

 welcome as Griefswarld's guests. (Great 

 applause.) 



When the venerable master, Dzierzon, 

 rose to open the discussion ef the first ques- 

 tion, he was greeted a second time with en- 

 thusiastic applause. The question first dis- 

 cussed was : 



Is the phenomenon of the preparation of 



food for larva: fully explained, or is 



there a mystery still connected with it, 



and to ivhat extent is this the case f 



Dr. Dzierzon said : The food of the larvae, 



judging from its never- varying color and 



quality, is by no means a mixture of honey 



and pollen, but is secreted in the body of 



the bee as milk is formed in the bodies of 



mammals, and is therefore to be looked 



upon as a product peculiar to the body of 

 the bee. The food eaten by bees, pollen and 

 honey, is completely digested, the available 

 elements are taken up by the general mass 

 of the blood, and the food for the larvae is 

 secreted by the salivary glands. Thus it 

 might be explained that bees, without pos- 

 sessing a cell of pollen, could rear brood 

 and feed the young bees with their blood, 

 which occurrence may very likely be the 

 reason that in the spring before the pollen- 

 harvest begins, and when considerable 

 brood has been started, there are so many 

 dead bees. The speaker regretted that no 

 physiologists were present, for they would 

 certainly have been able to answer correctly 

 this still dark question. 



Herr Vogel, of Lehmannshcefel, agreed 

 fully with Dr. Dzierzon, and stated as 

 additional testimony, that brood given to a 

 colony previously having none, would be 

 cared for at once. 



Herr Hilbert, of Maciejewo, was of the 

 same opinion as the two speakers who pre- 

 ceded him, and referred to the fact that in 

 experiments with milk and egg-feeding, too 

 great a quantity of nitrogenous food or a 

 lack of the same, or, what is the same thing, 

 an over-production or a lack of larvae-food, 

 would be likely to be injurious. 



Herr Waechter, of Merseburg, called 

 especial attention to the nitrogenous-holding 

 fennel-blossom honey, and recommended in 

 highest terms milk and egg feeding. 



Dr. Dzierzon spoke again, saying that the 

 salivary glands are the real producers of 

 food for larvae, which fact is seen by con- 

 sidering that in the spring when no pollen 

 is at hand the bees feed their brood, yet 

 usually when they are compelled to continue 

 this long, they die in large numbers, weak- 

 ened on account of the drain upon their 

 blood. 



" Niemand " remarks that from a strictly 

 practical stand-point, the solving of this 

 problem is very important ; that perhaps 

 scientific men, by comparing the results of 

 experiments, may throw some light on this 

 matter. 



Foreign Items. 



GLEANED BY PRANK BENTON. 



The great exhibition of bees, hives, honey, 

 and bee-manipulation, held under the aus- 

 pices of the Royal Agricultural Society of 

 England, and open to competitors of all na- 

 tions, takes place June 30th to July 7th. 

 Prizes to the amount of $116.14 are offered. 



The 24th Convention of German and Aus- 

 trian bee-keepers will be held from the 

 morning of Sept. 7th, to the evening of Sept. 

 11th, in Prague, Austria. This is the cele- 

 brated Wanderversammlung of the Ger- 

 man and Austrian bee-culturists, and, of 

 course, a grand time will be had. It is pro- 

 posed to make the apiarian exhibition held 

 at the same time, an international one. Ap- 

 plications for space should be made previous 

 to August 25th. 



Behnakd de Gelieu, of Colombier, 

 Switzerland, a well-known and often-quoted 

 bee-keeper, died last Januarg, at the age of 

 eighty-one. Que la terra lue soit legere ! 



