473 



with a coarse needle threaded with fine 

 twine pierce the straw and fasten the foun- 

 dation, which is held upright, as I did in the 

 frames. When the first sheet is fastened, 

 place parallel to it another, necessarily 

 smaller, at a distance of thirty-six mill- 

 meters (one and three-eighths inches), and 

 so proceed on each side of the foundation 

 first inserted, until you have filled the hive. 

 Then from a can having a long spout pour 

 melted wax into the angles that the sheets 

 of foundation made with the top of the 

 hive. The sides are left free, as in fitting 

 sheets into frames. 



Nothing is prettier than a bee-hive pre- 

 pared in this manner, but whatever some 

 enthusiasts may say regarding it, beware 

 of thinking it the most practical method. 1 

 have tried the experiment to my cost. 



No matter what plan you adopt in the 

 stocking this new habitation, less than a 

 day suffices to reduce your ingenious fabric 

 to a shapeless mass of ruins on the bottom- 

 board or entangled with the strings. 

 Softened by the heat due to the agitation of 

 the bees every comb will have fallen down 

 under the weight of the cluster. It will be 

 good fortune indeed if, in this general des- 

 truction, the queen does not meet the fate of 

 Pliny before Pompeii ! 



I know only one way to avoid this diffi- 

 culty ; and two conditions are indispensa- 

 ble : 1. You must have a straw hive filled 

 with an energetic swarm having a young 

 queen. 2. The year must be a very good 

 one. The first condition is under your con- 

 trol ; the second, unfortunately, is a child 

 of hazard ! However, if the month of 

 April has been favorable and rape-blossoms 

 have yielded well, try the experiment. 



Now, toward the close of this month 

 raise up your strong colony, sliding under 

 it your hive furnished with comb-founda- 

 tion, the hole in top of the lower hive being 

 open ; stop up the crevices between the two 

 boxes with clay and close the entrance of 

 the upper one. In order to leave the hive 

 the bees are obliged to go through the new 

 portion ; after a little they will stop there ; 

 work with the wax will commence ; the 

 queen will descend as soon as some cells 

 are finished, and, once below will rarely go 

 up again. By the month of September the 

 lower hive will have become the brood- 

 nest, while that above will be full of honey. 

 This new sort of a cap is to be removed and 

 the lower hive closed above. 



You will obtain in this manner a rapid 

 renewal of the combs, without defect, and 

 also quite a quantity of surplus honey in 

 the cap. But I repeat, the season must be 

 very favorable or else you will be obliged to 

 resort to feeding for stores, a process to 

 which, because of its expense, you would 

 not be the only one to object. 



I will say nothing of the partial renewal 

 of the combs in an old hive by the intro- 

 duction of foundation-sheets. The manip- 

 ulation in this case would nearly equal the 

 labors of Hercules, and the bee-keeper the 

 best protected against stings, would say his 

 prayers three times before venturing into 

 this hornet's nest. 



Then employ only to a very limited extent 

 comb-foundation in immovable-comb hives 

 that are already stocked. Shall we use it 



in the surplus boxes ? For my part, I 

 say no, because 1 sell the honey stored in 

 these boxes as first-class honey and in the 

 combs, and only virgin wax is easy to 

 cut. To those manufacturers who, as I have 

 read, recommend their foundation even for 

 this purpose, I will reply by the use of 

 some words which occurred tome two years 

 ago: "The middle-wall of your combs is 

 of leather or of paste-board ; the products 

 of our peasants with their rude and primi- 

 tive hives, are as fine and more tender. 

 You would do well, I think, to go back." 



If you only sell liquid honey it is evident 

 that you could make good use of comb- 

 foundation in the surplus honey-boxes. 

 However, in order to accord with the natu- 

 ral inclination of the bees, give them, in 

 these places, only drone-comb foundation. 



"But place no reliance upon foundation 

 sheets which, in case the workers refrain 

 from destroying them, would only give 

 large, irregular cells !" This absurdity was 

 certainly born in the brain of some ideolo- 

 gist who never examined the interior of a 

 bee-hive except— in a dream. 



In the building of cells bees know only 

 three sizes : that of worker-cells, that of 

 drone-cells, and that of queen-cells. All 

 their application of geometric principles is 

 limited to this. Why? Well the explana- 

 tion of this is easy. Nature mainly impels, 

 I might say soleiy impels, whatever exists 

 to perpetuate itself. But what do our insects 

 need for the preservation and the propaga- 

 tion of their kind ? The three fundamental 

 brood-cells, and nothing more. They only 

 have to make cells, the accumulation of 

 stores being only a secondary matter in the 

 life of these little creatures, and this accumu- 

 lation can be made largely in the ordinary 

 cells as fast as the advancing season renders 

 them available by the discontinuance of 

 laying. 



The conclusion to be drawn from this 

 letter and those which I have previously 

 written is : Use comb-foundation, but not 

 always, nor everywhere. Follow my ad- 

 vice concerning it and try nothing further ; 

 you will save yourself some vexatious ex- 

 periences, and, what is not less important, 

 you will spare your purse. Dr. Reisser. 



Bee-Keeping in Algeria. 



I have just got the news that at the Con- 

 cours Regional of Beauvaise — in other 

 words, Flower and Bee Show— I have been 

 awarded a Medaille de Vermeil (silver-gilt) 

 for the completeness of my exhibit, and espe- 

 cially the introduction of the manufacture of 

 foundation into France, as also my supers, 

 when the principal judge was Mons. Hamet. 

 You may imagine I consider this a triumph. 

 I have sold all my bees and leave here very 

 soon— heat unbearable, killing me— so I 

 will locate near Paris (D. V.), and run a few 

 colonies in the Gatinais, if possible. This 

 was an awful season for bees here — 3 swarms 

 on 60 colonies, and not a drop of honey. 

 Same all around— Arabs and French Alge- 

 rian bees and Italians all alike.— Arthur 

 Todd, Blidale, Algeria, July 8, 1S79, in 

 British Bee Journal. 



