178 



GLEANINGS IN HP:E CULTURE. 



Mak. I. 



under the super above the brood-chamber: or if 

 only this super is used, I find that about one 

 queen in six will get above the excluder, and 

 the escape fails to operate. The remedy here 

 is to exercise greater care in rearing large 

 queens. 



My plan of manipulation is to take the es- 

 capes on the wheelbarrow, about 4 or ,5 o'clock 

 in the afternoon, and go to the hives that need 

 extracting, and tilt the super forwai-d; slip the 

 escape-board under as far as it will go, then pull 

 the super back upon the escape-board, shoving 

 all forward on the hive. It can be quickly done-, 

 and but few bees crushed if a little smoke is 

 used when tilting the super. 



When extracting from a hive with only one 

 super it is necessary to have an extra super of 

 empty combs to put under the one we take 

 away; for it would cause a loss of honey to 

 crowd the bees into the brood-chamber and 

 leave them there while the super is being ex- 

 tracted. With two supers, however, there is 

 room for the bees and a place to store honey if 

 one of the supers is removed. Having placed 

 the escapes in the evening, the first work before 

 sunrise the next morning is to take the wheel- 

 barrow and commence wheeling in the supers. 

 I have 34 escapes; and were it not for the afore- 

 said small queens getting into the supers I could 

 wheel in 30 of them without using veil orsmoke; 

 but with those troublesome queens, I have tak- 

 en in 3.5; the rest were left until after breakfast, 

 and were brought in by using smoker, veil, and 

 brush. The 34 supers are piled up in the ex- 

 tracting-room, and are easily cleaned up before 

 one o'clock. This season, to give the escapes a 

 more extensive trial, they will beincreased to.'iO. 



I find one very decided advantage in the use 

 of the escape is, that the outdoor work is all 

 done in the morning and evening, and the in- 

 door work in the shade during the heat of the 

 day, which is no small item in this climate, 

 where the mercury has a way of rushing up to 

 100° and over. I set opposite this a disadvan- 

 tage. If the bees run off the combs in the early 

 evening, the cool nights here have an effect upon 

 the honey, and it requires more whirling of the 

 extractor to clean the combs. 1 also find that, 

 if we try to remedy this by putting the escape 

 on during the day time, the bees will nol leave 

 the combs so readily as they do in the night. 



There are several points in the use of the es- 

 cape that I need to test before I shall unequivo- 

 cally adopt them; but upon one point I am fully 

 decided; i. e., their highest success will be with 

 the shallow divisible brood -chamber. It is also 

 manifest that the escape is more of a help to 

 the person who works his apiary alone than to 

 those who work from apiary to apiary with a 

 crew of men; in the latter case it might be a 

 nuisance. 



When some of our leading producers, like 

 Mr. France in the East, and Mr. Corey in the 

 far West, refuse to use them, it will not do to 



attribute it to old-fogyism, but to the fact that 

 these veterans are used to judging the value of 

 new appliances by their apparent usefulness. 

 If this point is not stdrtlliKjIy apparent, they 

 want nothing to do with it. 



The case then remains about like this: There 

 is certainly more or less manipulation with the 

 escape. Shall we perform this manipulation, 

 or shall we continue to brush bees? I shall con- 

 tinue another season, at least, with the escape. 

 I have tried to give an impartial view of the 

 situation, hoping the result will be an improve- 

 ment in the escape that will be startlingly ap- 

 parent. 



^ I — ^ 



DR. JOHN DZIERZON. 



AN IXTERESTING SKETCH OF A GREAT MAN. 



By Kiirl Rudolph Mathey. 



Dr. John Dzierzon was born on the 16th of 

 January, ISll, in Lowkowitz, near Kreuzburg, 

 Upper Silesia, where his parents were free- 

 holders. He was an ardent lover of Nature's 

 works from his youth up, and as a boy he busied 

 himself in the cultivation of flowers and trees. 

 But nothing had so great attractions for him 

 as the observation anJ care of bees, an apiary 

 of which his father kept, using log skeps. 



As Dr. Dzierzon early manifested a deeply 

 religions turn of thought, his father took great 

 pains for the further development of his son in 

 that direction, and at first sent him to the pub- 

 lic school at Pitschen. Here "our John " dis- 

 tinguished himself by his diligence and prog- 

 ress, and was the favorite of his teacher. In 

 1832, at the age of 11, Dr. Dzierzon was capable 

 of being promoted to the Mathias Gymnasium, 

 in Breslau. From 1830 to 1834 our great teacher 

 was a student at the University of Breslau. 

 Although he was always diligent in the regular 

 curriculum of studies, yet his hours of study 

 did not interrupt his investigations in apicul- 

 ture. 



During the holidays. Dr. Dzierzon always 

 spent his time under the parental roof, and 

 applied himself to his father's bee-hives which 

 henceforth became his open book of observa- 

 tion and independent manipulation. In Breslau 

 he spent his hours of recreation preferably at 

 well-known apiaries, and read, during his 

 leisure houi's, with the greatest interest, what- 

 ever he could find printed oi' written in relation 

 to bees. The old adage. "The bees stung him 

 HDiart in his youth," had its most striking ful- 

 fillment in Dr. Dzierzon. His greatest delight 

 was to admire the untiring diligence and skill- 

 ful architecture of the little workers. 



Becoming more and more enamored with 

 Nature, and finding in her and in her study the 

 marks of almighty wisdom, this struggle for 

 light was destined to become the cause of his 

 celebrity. So. like his great models, Schirach 

 and Christ, in regard to solving the problem of 



