192 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER 



October 



few days and lift the heaviest combs 

 into tlie super and bees will soon set to 

 In the super and give the queen a chance 

 to do her share of the work properly, 

 which is very essential if we are to har- 

 vest all we should from the logwood 

 bloom. And this is why it is so essen- 

 tial that we have vigorous young queens 

 as we cannot afford the time taken to 

 supersede an old queen just before the 

 honey harvest. Our apiarists are awak- 

 ening to the necessity of having the 

 very best quality of queens; and we are 

 offered daughters of " Root's ftiOO," "Doo- 

 little's best'" etc., by our local breeders. 

 Verily, we are up to date 1 I don't want 

 a guarantee of length of tongue, but 

 queens from a breeder that breeds and 

 breeds for business. At the same time 

 we would welcome bees with longer 

 tongues, if they were an inch longer, for 

 then bees could work on bananas that are 

 in bloom the year round, and yield a 

 bountiful flowof nectar; but as the tubes 

 are about one and a quarter inches in 

 depth, bees have to fight for the oc- 

 casional drop that runs down to where 

 they can get at it. Red clover isn't in 

 it with bananas in yield of nectar — or in 

 length of floral tubes. But 1 fear it will 

 be a long time before tongues are 

 stretched to the requirements of the 

 banana. "Enterprise." 



GERMANY. 



Editor Reidenbach recommends in the 

 Phalzer Bienen ZeUung as a remedy for 

 foul-brood the use of either formic acid, 

 thyme oil or formaldehyde. The hive 

 should be burned out with a fire of straw 

 and the wa.\ and honey boiled for three 

 hours. He deems it best to add a 5 per 

 cent, salecylic acid solution while the 

 honey is boiling. 



Lipps says in the same paper that he; 

 has come to the conclusion the proper 

 time to raise queens is during June and 

 July while the honey-flow is on. lie 

 thinks the work is much pleasanter 

 during such a time and feeding has not 

 to be resorted to, while the queens rais- 

 ed prove more prolific and longer lived. 

 as a general thing. 



According to Fettei'oll, in the Pluielzer 

 BlenenZeitimg.a queen may be safely in- 

 troduced as follows: " Remove the old 

 queen and substitute the new one in a 

 wire-cloth cage. After twenty -four 

 hours give access to the opening of th(! 

 cage, closed with good candv. Wait one 



week, then look for brood." [This 

 method works well during the time 

 when honey is coming in, and during 

 the Spring months. If there is a wood 

 stopper in the cage, be sure and have 

 the hole through it large enough. I 

 have had trouble in queens not coming 

 ou*; of cage, and I found them still in the 

 cage at the end of the week. — F. G.J 



Reidenbach goes Root one better. 

 Root sells his queens according to the 

 length of tongue; Reidenbach according 

 to their weight. The latter has a pair of 

 very sensitive scales and every queen is 

 carefully weighed. The heaviest are 

 marked at fancy prices — perhaps $200 

 each, I do not know. 



On these same scales thirty drone eggs 

 were weighed ; they weighed 5 milli- 

 grams; worker eggs the same. 



Accoi'ding to statistics, the number of 

 colonies kept in Germany has decreased 

 by 300,000 during the last twenty years. 



i^ 

 The largest apiaries kept in Germany 

 comprise 451, 380, 300, 385, 210, 170 and 

 150 colonies respectively. 



9 

 In order that a bee may fly she must 

 move her wings very rapidly; so rapidly, 

 indeed, that they Isecome invisible to 

 the eye. It has been figured out by a 

 German scientist that the number of 

 strokes maintained by a flying bee are 

 440 to the second. 



The average German bee-keeper can- 

 not understand how it is possible that 

 bees can be handled as rapidly and 

 easily as is reported in Amei'ican bee- 

 jouruals. One American bee-keeper and 

 queen-breeder was recently very severe- 

 ly criticised on account of telling such 

 "awful'" yarns about his queen-rearing 

 methods. The reason why the German 

 bee-keepers are disinclined to believe our 

 reports or statements lies in the fact that 

 the hives they themselves use are con- 

 structed so as to make the handling of 

 the bees about as inconvenient and com- 

 plicated as possible; at least I cannot 

 imagine how better a hive could be con- 

 structed to make it more inconvenient. 

 With such hives it would indeed be very 

 difficult to go through with such opera- 

 tions as even a novice here would not 

 hesitate to undertake. 

 ij 



Many of the German bee-keepers re- 



I 



