236 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



"My watering-bottles are frequented 

 even during a rain. I have observed that 

 on days in which the flow is heavy, they 

 are almost entirely abandoned. This has 

 become one of my most certain signs 

 that the bees are gathering honey. ' ' — G. 

 Ivaufranchi. "If during a period of 

 bloom the bees gather abundant pollen 

 all day, it is a certain sign that nectar is 

 lacking. ' ' — Editor. 



The editor has never been able to con- 

 vince himself of the exactness of the af- 

 firmation that when forage is deficient 

 near by, the bees will go four miles for it. 

 Twice at a distance of two miles, and once 

 three miles awaj^ pasturage was abun- 

 dant, but his bees gathered nothing. 



"Many still believe that the entrance 

 of the surplus apartment serves to short- 

 en the travel of the foragers. No, the 

 bee that flies in the fields goes and re- 

 turns through the brood-nest entrance; 

 it does not frequent the super, having 

 nothing to do there. When it enters the 

 hive it delivers its load of nectar to the 

 first home bee that extends its tongue to 

 it. This one either employs it for the 

 nutrition of the brood, or keeps it in its 

 own body, where it is separated from the 

 water it contains, part of which is absorb- 

 ed by the organism, and part bj- respira- 

 tion. ■ That the nectar is stored in the 

 cells by the honey-gatherers as it comes 

 from the fiowers, and is there condensed 

 by direct evaporation, is a fable to which 

 no one w^ho wishes and knows how to 

 observe will lend credence." — Editor. 



The strongest colonies of Guisej^pe 

 Laufranchiin 1897 yielded less than half 

 as much surplus apiece as many of the 

 other colonies. He comments thus: "For 

 years now I have observed that especially 

 in poor seasons the strongest colonies 

 here among us northerners eat their 

 heads oflf; and for that reason, under or- 

 dinary circumstances, I prefer colonies 

 not too populous, which in poor and good 

 seasons alike, when the extractor is han- 

 dy, give me a good quality of honey." 

 The editor has this foot-note: "This is a 

 truth of which the lamented Dr. Metelli 



never wished to persude himself, accus- 

 tomed as he was to practice apiculture in 

 Reggio Calabria, the promised land of 

 bees, and at Berlingo, where, as he said 

 himself, from the beginning of the season 

 until late autumn, pasture for, his bees was 

 never lacking. In a region with a very 

 rich nectar-bearing fiora, especially in 

 spring, capacious hives and gigantic pop- 

 ulations will always have the advantage 

 over those of more modest proportions; 

 in less favored zones, as a rule, not." 



The editor says an artificial swarm 

 should always have the queen of the hive 

 from which it was taken, not a strong 

 one, because otherwise it becomes too 

 excited, and might abscond. 



On his plan of introducing queens by 

 means of an artificial cell, or wax cage 

 ( Review, p. 14), he remarked " The ac- 

 ceptation of laying queens is so certain 

 that I no longer take pains to verify it. 

 I haye not yet tried it with virgin queens. 

 The operation is simple, easy, and speedy. 

 In two to four hours the queen is libera- 

 ted, while when she is in a wire cage from 

 24 to 48 hours elapse." 



A writer named Jukos, quotod by Dr. 

 Dubine, assigns as a reason for waiting 

 five or six days before destroying the 

 queen-cells after the issue of a first swarm, 

 . that the bees destroy the cells from which 

 only small queens would emerge. 



Rev. Caruana Dingli writes on bee- 

 keeping in Malta as follows: "Neither 

 size of my hives, nor abundant ventila- 

 tion and the the substitution of full sheets 

 of foundation for brood combs, which are 

 removed, check the swarming inipluse of 

 my bees in seasons like the present one. 

 Our queens lay the whole year, and es- 

 pecially when January comes the hives 

 are boiling over with bees. Qneens are 

 fecundated in every season of the year. 

 .... When a colony swarms here, it is 

 not, as the books say, 6 or 7 days before 

 the second swarm issues, but it does so 

 on the next day, or, at most, two or three 

 days later, and several times I have had 

 two swarms in the same day from the 

 same hive. The queen-cells are very 



