54 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



Bees in Brazil. 



M. Hanueman, an intelligent bee-keeper who 

 emigrated from Germany to Brazil about ten 

 years ago, taking two hives of bees with him, 

 and who has been very successful in bee culture 

 there, recently gave an account of his opera- 

 tions in a communication to the Bicnenzeitung, 

 from which we make some extracts. 



He says: "I practice bee culture here on an 

 entirely new system, devised by myself, adapt- 

 ed to the requirements of the climate, and which 

 enables me to maintain a very large apiary at 

 small expense, and yet so profitably that I can 

 truly say that all I possess is the product of my 

 bees. The bee-keepers of this province (Rio 

 Grande du Sol) however, know nothing as yet 

 of this system, as I am not disposed toilet the 

 results of my experience, obtained at a sacrifice 

 of time and money, be misused and brought 

 into discredit by incompetent hands, and the 

 Government give no heed to the protection of 

 any branch of industrial pursuits. 



"Of Dzierzon's invention I can barely use 

 the slats, and those nailed fast and applied in 

 hives rather long than high. And I would wa- 

 ger any sum that were Dzierzon and Berlepsch 

 here, and engaged in bee culture, they would 

 speedily abandon the use of their movable combs 

 and transportable hives. In a poor season, mul- 

 tiplication of stocks artificially is with us not 

 only useless but injurious, and in a fertile and 

 favorable year swarms come in undesired num- 

 bers, and can by no process be prevented. I 

 should like to see the man who could check the 

 propensity for swarming, and restrict the bees 

 to honey-gathering alone. It is here a sheer 

 impossibility, and militates against the uncon- 

 trollable impulse of the bees to send forth 

 swarms in the propitious climate of this extra- 

 ordinarily favored and productive country; and 

 I am firmly convinced that any one who should 

 attempt to obviate the conditions and counter- 

 act the propensity for swarming, so as to ren- 

 der this impossible, would very soon get tired 

 of the undertaking and abandon it in despair. 



'•The years 1857 and 1858 were the most pro- 

 ductive of any since I came here. In each of 

 these I obtained three tons of jDure honey and 

 seven hundred and fifty pounds of wax. But 

 in 1859 I obtained only about two-thirds as much 

 of each; and the year 1860 taught us that every 

 country and every pursuit is, at times, subject 

 to some peculiar disadvantage or drawback. 

 The spring opened finely, but after I had ob- 

 tained and secured about three hundred swarms, 

 a cold rain, lasting four days, set in and de- 

 stroyed all the forage. The bees ceased to la- 

 bor, and swtirming was at an end. The spring 

 of 18G1 opened tolerably fair. But after I had 

 secured one hundred and forty swarms, a vio- 

 lent hail-storm occurred, and all our fond hopes 

 were blasted. The bees no longer flew out even 

 when the weather was fine, the entire apiary 

 was as silent and deserted as in winter, and 

 presented a disheartening aspect. The young 

 swarms starved, and the old stocks could only 

 be preserved by plentiful feeding. I too dis- 

 covered, somewhat late indeed, that man must 



come to the rescue when nature withholds her 

 gifts. The small cpiantity of wax I obtained in 

 the spring scarcely sufficed to defray the cost of 

 the four barrels of sugar fed to my bees, and 

 some colonies jierished nevertheless, reducing 

 my apiary to one hundred and twenty stocks. 



"On this occasion I was compelled to feed 

 nearly eighty colonies, and this circumstance 

 led me to devise a peculiar mode of feeding 

 with sugar. As neither loaf sugar nor sugar- 

 candy is to be had here, I dissolved the com- 

 mon sugar in water, clarified it, and then boiled 

 it down to the consistence of taffy, and run it 

 into paper-lined tin or wooden moulds, to the 

 thickness of one tenth of an inch. When cold, 

 I cut these into strips of about four inches long 

 by two inches broad, and insert these weekly 

 or oftener from below, between the combs, near 

 the cluster, or lay them on the slats above. By 

 this process I saved the cost of feeding troughs, 

 and the wearisome toil of administering liquid 

 food or diluted honey. When the spring opened, 

 I fed my bees in the open air, as my Portuguese 

 neighbors kept none. 



"The year 1864 was one of great abundance. 

 The spring was dry and favorable, and every 

 hive, whether containing old colonies or recent 

 swarms, was speedily so stored with honey that 

 fcAV brood cells remained. From one hundred 

 and seventy stocks which I had wintered, I ob- 

 tained six hundred swarms; which number, by 

 imiting, I reduced to three hundred and twelve. 

 These yielded me three tons of honey, and 

 nearly seven hundred pounds of wax. In the 

 fall I reduced the number of my stocks to two 

 hundred and eighteen. Of these I lost six the 

 folloAving winter — leaving me two hundred and 

 twelve to begin the ensuing year with; and as 

 I had then forty-two stocks more than in the 

 previous year, and that number of empty hives 

 less, I found great difficulty in disposing prop- 

 erly of the six hundred swarms which the next 

 season produced. 



"It will be seen from the foregoing that in 

 suitable districts and favorable seasons, bee cul- 

 ture is a very difi'erent aflriir in this country 

 from what it is in most others. As we have 

 two swarming seasons in the year, the enlarge- 

 ment of an apiary proceeds very rapidly, and 

 may, with proper management, be safely in- 

 dulged in." 



It is folly to talk of the cheapness of hives. 

 If a man intends to keep bees, he must in the 

 first place have his hives made in the very best 

 manner; by this we mean of good materials and 

 of good workmanship. A hive badly joined by 

 a bungling carpenter, is worse than a hollow 

 log. One half of the labors of the bees will 

 necessarily be devoted to keeping their dwel- 

 liusj; in a tenantable condition. 



In every apiary, the empty hives should be 

 weighed and marked, that the quantity of ho- 

 ney they contain when stocked may at any time 

 be easily ascertained, by deducting the Aveight 

 of the iiivc from the gross,- and allowing for 

 pollen and wax. 



