906 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Dec. 1. 



question, " Has the old straw skep a right to be 

 used ? " " Yes," said he, " farmers should use 

 the old skep, but only with supers, and if they 

 do not know how to manage a movable-comb 

 hive, or if they can not spare the time for a fall 

 management of the latter.'" 



Baron Ambrozy, of Temes Gyarmata, Hunga- 

 ry, replied to the question, " What are the gains 

 in bee culture since Dr. Dzierzon's advent? " A 

 great number of implements for bee-keeping 

 have been invented, which in most cases do 

 more to injure bee-keeping than to help it — for 

 example, the drinking-vessels for bees, used in 

 the hives. To give a colony of bees water in 

 the hive in winter, or early in the spring, is, in 

 most cases, not necessary. To use a heating- 

 apparatus for raising bees is also useless. He 

 could not recommend such work. The best in- 

 ventions made were the movable-comb hive, 

 the honey-extractor, comb foundation, and the 

 queen-exclnder. 



Sept. 4, Metzger, of Neutra, Hungary, spoke 

 of the anatomical structure of the honey-bee. 

 and mentioned his theory that the queen is an 

 hermaphrodite. The drone-egg is fecundated 

 in the rece{>taculu7nscminali.s of the queen, 

 not with a spermatozo()n derived from a drone, 

 as is the case with those eggs which develop 

 into a queen or worker-bee. but from a secretion 

 in the receptdculiun sembudis of the (jueen. 



Pater Coelistin Schachinger, of Sch(enbiehl, 

 Austria, answered the question, " Is it advan- 

 tageous to get bees from foreign countries?" 

 He said it is not. The best bees are the native. 



Dr. Dzierzon defended the Italian bee ; and 

 Mr. Vogel Letschin, Germany, recommended a 

 cross-breed of two varieties. He is of the opin- 

 ion that there only two varieties of the genus 

 MelUfica — the Egyptian and the black German 

 bee. Any other variety, as the Italian, Cypri- 

 an. Carniolan, etc.. is derived from these two 

 varieties. He had in his apiary a bee that 

 could not be distinguished from an Italian bee. 

 He bred it by crossing the Egyptian with the 

 German bee. He had also bred a strain of bees 

 like the Cyprian and the very black bee. 



Guenther Gisperleben, Germany, confirmed 

 what Dr. Dzierzon said about the Italian bee. 

 He has had, every winter and spring, more loss- 

 es among the Italian queens than in any other 

 variety of bees; therefore he did not like the 

 pure Italians. The many (jueenless colonies in 

 spring were not profitable. 



Pastor Fulde, Silesia, Germany, recommended 

 a new specific for foul brood— viz., lysol. He 

 'has used it mixed with the food. 



Guenther Gisperleben, Germany, answered 

 the question, " How do the various hives affect 

 the swarming of bees and the yield of honey ? " 

 He said, " Too small a hive would, of course, fa- 

 vor swarming— as, for instance, the old straw 

 skep; but as for the movable-comb hives, as 

 they have skillful managers the swarming fe- 

 ver could be suppressed in many cases by proper 



manipulation. To suppress the swarming fe- 

 ver entirely would be a great task, even in a 

 very large hive ; for such colony would swarm 

 mostly at a time when the bee-keeper least de- 

 sires it." According to a fundamental law of 

 the increase of brood and worker-bees, large 

 hives with larger frames, such as the German 

 standard frames, have been recommended. 

 These large frames have by no means done this- 

 year what they should have done, for the hon- 

 ey-flow failed. Mr. Guenther, with his German 

 standard frames, has had a first-rate honey- 

 harvest, while the fashionable bee-keepers, with 

 their large frames, got nothing. He, as well as 

 Baron Berlepsch, Dathe, and other prominent 

 bee-keepers of Germany, had, formerly, larger 

 fi-ames. but soon learned by experience that this 

 frame was not advantageous in more than one 

 case. He and other German bee-keepers aban- 

 doned the larger frames, and their honey -yield 

 confirmed the wisdom of so doing, during the 

 lapse of years. Hence, he said, it would be best 

 to hold fast to the German standard frames, and 

 so much the more as this frame is within a tri- 

 lle of being as large as the Langstroth, which is 

 used by the greatest number of the most experi- 

 enced bee-krepers of America. 



The next convention will be held at Leipsic, 

 Germany, in 1895. 



The exhibit of bees, implements, and honey, 

 at Vienna, was undoubtedly the best ever seen 

 there, and showed the great progress that bee- 

 keeping has made in Germany, Austria, and 

 Hungary. 



Wilsnack. Germany, Oct. 3','. 



^ — » — ^ 



NOTES OF BICYCLE TRAVEL. 



AT DR. C. C. MII.LEK S. 



Bij Ernest R. Rnot. 



That night, although it was rather late, and 

 I had ridden 80 miles that afternoon, we sat up 

 and talked. At a late hour I retired, and 

 early next morning— yes, even before I was out 

 of bed. some one came into the room while I 

 was rubbing my eyes trying to make out wheth- 

 er I was on the wheel or where. The doctor, 

 it seems, had been watching his chance; and as 

 soon as I showed the least signs of awakening, 

 he stood before me with a new self-spacing de- 

 vice which he had been studying over a good 

 deal. 



•' Well, what do you think of it ? " said he. 



I blinked and stared awhile, and, for want of 

 something better to say, I replied, " I don't 

 know." On becoming fully awakened I con- 

 cluded it might have some good points about it, 

 although I did not like it as well as the Hoff- 

 man self-spacing arrangement such as we use. 

 I wil not mention it in detail here, because the 

 doctor will probably describe it later on. 



After breakfast the doctor took up his record- 

 book— the book in which he keeps the records 



