American Bee Journal. 



EDITED AND PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL WAGNER, WASHINGTON, D. C. 



AT TWO DOLLARS PER ANNUM, PAYABLE IN ADVANCE. 



Vol. IV. 



MARCH, I8G9. 



No. 9. 



Great Meeting of German Bee-Masters, 



Held at Darmstadt, Sept. 8, 9, and 10, 



18GS. 



These meetings of bee-masters held periodi- 

 cally in one after another of the principal towns 

 of Germany, show what a point bee-keeping has 

 reached in that country, and are most interest- 

 ing as well as advantageous in their results. 

 The meeting, which was held this year at Darm- 

 stadt, the capital of the Grand Duchy of Hesse, 

 was attended by a large number of the celebri- 

 ties of German bee-keeping. Some Avell known 

 names, including Baron von Berlepsch, (who is 

 suffering from a stroke of paralysis, but grow- 

 ing better,) are missed from the list, but still a 

 meeting attended by such men as Dzierzon, 

 Von Hruschka (the inventor of the centrifugal 

 comb-emptying machine,) Vogel (introducer of 

 the Egyptian bee to Germany,) Dathe, Koehler, 

 Professor Lenckart, of Giessen, perhaps the first 

 authority of the day on the natural history of 

 the bee, a Greek Priest from Croatia, Marchesi 

 Crivelli, the great reformer in Italian bee-keep- 

 ing, from Milan, to say nothing of many others 

 more or less known, from all parts of Germany, 

 and several from France, could not fail to be 

 interesting. Great facilities were also afforded 

 by the fact that almost every railway company 

 in Germany and Austria conveyed bee-keepers 

 or other visitors to the meeting, as well as arti- 

 cles for exhibition, at fares generally 50 per 

 cent, or more reduced. 



The first day of the meeting was Sept. 8, and 

 at halt-past ten the President, His Excellency 

 Heir von Berchthold, opened the proceedings, 

 by welcoming the visitors in the name of H. 

 Pi. H. the Grand Duke, who had placed his 

 orangery and adjoining grounds at the disposal 

 of the meeting, and addressed the assembly in 

 a short speech, followed by two other addresses 

 by the Mayors of Darmstadt and Bessungen. 



The President then read out the rules for 

 guiding the speakers, and the real business of 

 the day was commenced by a speech by Pro- 

 lessor LcueUart, enforcing first of all the neces- 

 sity of learning theory as well as practice, in 

 order lo become a successful apiarian. He then 



proceeded to notice the points of similarity and 

 difference in their habits between hive bees, 

 wasps, ants, and humble bees, dwelling espe- 

 cially upon the extraordinary fertility of the 

 queen bee. 



The first subject upon the programme then 

 came on for discussion. " 1, What is the cause 

 of the difference of size of queen bees ? 2, Are 

 the larger queens to be preferred to the small, 

 and why? 3, Is it in the bee-master's power to 

 insure the production of large queens ? 



These questions had been proposed by Dzier- 

 zon, who ascended the speaker's platform 

 amidst a storm of applause. The substance of 

 his remarks was : 1, That the difference in size 

 is caused by difference iu food during develop- 

 ment, and depends, therefore, much upon 

 whether the queens be bred during the time 

 when there is abundance of pollen or not; 

 pollen being, in fact, the clement of their food, 

 which is of most importance in this respect. 

 2, That although smaller queens are, often, at 

 least, as fruitful as large ones, yet that the ad- 

 vantages of size in other respects arc great, as, 

 for instance, if the queen is to be caught, and 

 especially because experience has shown that 

 large queens are annually impregnated in a 

 much shorter time than small ones; a difference 

 sometimes, especially in cool weather, being 

 observed of ten days. The third question is 

 answered mainly in the remarks on the first, 

 merely adding that the fewer queen« that are 

 being bred at once by one stock, the larger they 

 are likely to be. 



Dr. Pollmaun, from Bonn, thought that the 

 difference in size depended much on the age of 

 the grubs in the case of artificially-bred queens, 

 for that a grub which had been fed four to five 

 days with common food, could not develep to 

 the same size as if it had all along enjoyed royal 

 food; and also on the fact that the egg na'urally 

 destined to become a queen is kept warmer at 

 the first than other eggs. As every bee keeper 

 will allow, large queens must be stronger than 

 small ones, and to produce large ones we must 

 always take care to commence with the egg at 

 as early a stage as possible. 



The second subject then came in order. 

 "What is the result of all that has appeared in 



