1920 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



423 



as is believed. Fred Slocum, of 

 Michigan, writes that when one gets 

 the habit of catching bees he kills it, 

 but otherwise he lets the birds alone. 



Howard Minnick, of New York 

 State writes a very interesting ac- 

 count of his observations, showing a 

 number of cases where the birds have 

 been quite destructive to the bees. 

 He mentions having seen a kingbird 

 fly into a swarm of bees. The bees 

 returned to the hive -without cluster- 

 ing and swarmed again on the eighth 

 day. He thinks that in that case the 

 bird caught the queen. 



The writer had one or more fami- 

 lies of kingbirds living about his api- 

 aries at Atlantic, Iowa, for a num- 

 ber of years, and watched them 

 closely. It was very rare that he was 

 able to suspect one of the birds of 

 catching bees. Considering all the 

 evidence at hand it appears that oc- 

 casionally a kingbird will form the 

 habit of catching bees to a serious 

 extent. Such a bird should be dis- 

 posed of. However, generally speak- 

 ing, the kingbird is valuable about 

 the farm and garden, as it lives, for 

 the most part, upon injurious insects. 

 The individual which is destructive 

 should not bring distrust upon the 

 entire species. 



NOTED BEEKEEPERS 



Would you please give information 

 in the Bee Journal concerning Ber- 

 lepsch and his hive, Kanitz, Dzierzon 

 and Gravenhorst? 



PENNSYLVANIA. 



August Von Berlepsch was born in 

 Seebach, Germany, in 1815. He was 

 so fond of bees in childhood that he 

 was given a hive of bees when he 

 was 7 years old. In 1841 he had over 

 100 colonies. In 185S he invited the 

 two celebrated scientists, Siebold and 

 Leuckhart, to come and make experi- 

 ments upon the Dzierzon theory of 

 parthenogenesis, in his apiary. In 

 1860, he published his book "The Bee 

 and its Production in Movable-Frame 

 Hives.' The hive of his invention is 

 of movable frames, but opening at 

 the rear, and the frames have to be 

 pulled out with pincers, for the ceil- 

 ing of the brood-chamber is immov- 

 able. Even at present, the unwieldy 

 pincers which he used to draw the 

 frames out of hives are still offered 

 for sale by some European manufac- 

 turers of bee supplies, and his hive 

 is still used by many in Germany and 

 German Switzerland, though it is 

 very inconvenient. 



Berlepsch was really only an active 

 supporter of the Dzierzon ideas, 

 though he first opposed him on many 

 points. Most of the above facts were 

 taken from L'Apicoltore of April, 

 1877. 



J. G. Kanitz was a writer on bees 

 who published "Beekeeping for 

 Honey and Wax," 1853-60, at Hen- 

 richsdorf, Prussia (now Poland). He 

 published also a Prussian bee maga- 

 zine at Koenigsberg, about 1860. 



Dr. Johann Dzierzon, a Catholic 

 priest, was born at Lokowitz, Silesia, 

 January 16, 1811. He was the orig- 



inal discoverer of parthenogenesis in 

 the honeybee. He began writing on 

 liecs in 1844 and published his first 

 book "Theory and Practice of the 

 New Bee Friend" in 1848. From 1854 

 to 1856 he published a monthly maga- 

 zine entitled, "The Beekeeper of Si- 

 lesia." In 1861 he published his best 

 work, "Rational Beekeeping," which 

 had numerous editions and was 

 translated into English, in 1882, by H. 

 Dieck and S. Stutterd, and published 

 in London by G. N. Abbott, then ed- 

 itor of the British Bee Journal. 

 Dzierzon's hive was a hanging-comb 

 hive, or bar-hive, in which the combs 

 were hanging from a top-bar. A side 

 door permitted of their being cut 

 loose from the walls at either end. He 

 wrote, page 53 of the English edi- 

 tion : "Under the covering of the 

 hive are separate small, thin and nar- 

 row pieces of board, from which the 

 comb which is to be removed is sus- 

 pended, which are taken out and the 

 combs attached to them of course ac- 

 company them, they having previ- 

 ously been loosened from the side 

 walls." 



It is to be wondered at how, with 

 such inconvenient hives, 'he could 

 make the discoveries which are now 

 universally accepted and are no 

 longer theories. 



Dr. Dzierzon lived 49 years of his 

 life at Karlsmarket, Silesia, where he 

 made all his important studies. He 

 died October 26, 1906, at Lokowitz, 

 Silesia, his birthplace, aged 96 years. 



C. F. H. Gravenhorst, of Braun- 

 schweig, Germany, was a writer on 

 bees who invented a movable-frame 

 hive of straw, the frames of which 

 were in the shape of an oblong half 

 circle. This hive is illustrated in the 

 Dadant-Langstroth book, "The Hive 

 and Honeybee." Mr. Gravenhorst 

 published, for a long time, the "II- 

 lustrierte Bienenzeitung." He was 

 a contributor of the American Bee 

 Journal in the seventies, and also of 

 divers European bee magazines. He 

 has nothing important to his credit, 

 in the way of discoveries. 



BEE NOTES 



The Sentinel Bee 



By Rev. A. A. Evans 

 The alighting board of a hive, to 

 the bee lover, is always an object of 

 interest. During the daj'light hours 

 of hot summer months there is an in- 

 cessant coming .and going; and unless 

 the bees are of an unusually cross- 

 grained strain, at the busy season 

 they are completely indifferent to the 

 watcher, if he does not intrude too 

 closely. But should he trespass too 

 far on the tolerance of the workers 

 he will become aware of a rush of 

 two or three bees, making threaten- 

 ing circles around him and a distinct 

 hiss which is a warning to be off un- 

 less he has previously guarded him- 

 self with a veil. These are the sen- 

 try bees — sent'ies which guard the 

 hive entrance night and day, just as 

 in olden time soldiers guarded the 

 gates of human cities. Go wherever 

 you will, however eager the bees may 



be with honey-getting, there are al- 

 ways some told off, two or three, to 

 guard the entrance, and should the 

 danger approaching seem to them 

 a formidable one, by a note or sign, 

 at once there is a rush from within of 

 assistants to wage a defensive war. 

 The Ventilators 



Also observable during hot and 

 sultry days is the small regiment of 

 bees engaged at the hive entrance in 

 ventilating. There is no mistaking 

 them. They seem like wingless in- 

 sects, so swift and incessant is 

 the beat of their gauze appendages, 

 and in the night, when the alighting 

 board is free of the throngs coming 

 and going, and when all around is 

 still and calm, the vibration of wings 

 of these ventilating bees sounds in 

 the ears like the distant roar of the 

 sea. 



Thought-out and Scientific 



And notice, the ventilating bees do 

 not stand in a loose, disarranged 

 group, but in orderly files, one behind 

 the other, thus catching and drawing 

 a steady in-draught and steady out- 

 draught. There are usually two 

 groups, one just outside the hive en- 

 trance and one just inside, and be- 

 side these, during the time of great 

 heat, there are parties of ventilators 

 at regular intervals and regular lines, 

 up to the combs; and if the watcher 

 suspends close to the opening a 

 thread of wool or of cotton, the 

 strong sway of the current is at once 

 seen and unmistakable. 



Sanitary Experts 



Bees need, like human creatures, 

 fresh, pure air, and unlike many of 

 the human kii.d who would live in a 

 corked bottle if they could, they are 

 at great pains and trouble to ensure 

 it. Indeed, a beehive is a most won- 

 derful lesson in a scientific ventila- 

 tion. Here is a city packed such as 

 is unknown in the most crowded hu- 

 man city, and yet living through the 

 heat of summer and cold of winter 

 with a temperature uniform and 

 equable and with breathing air un- 

 vitiated. How is it done? The meth- 

 od might be worth the attention of 

 some of our sanitary experts. For 

 bees obtain their fresh air by what 

 may be called a rotary system. They 

 hate the through draught, that is, a 

 cold current passing vertically 

 through the hive. Their method is to 

 combine the movement of fresh air 

 with warmth, and to do this the 

 watchers at the alighting board will 

 see that the ventilating bees are al- 

 ways at one side of the entrance, 

 never the center, and the fresh air is 

 passed in at one side, made to circu- 

 late round the walls and then passed 

 out again at the other side of the en- 

 trance; and during exceptionally hot 

 weather, another company of bees 

 can be seen fanning out the vitiated 

 air. 



The Sound of Far-away Sea 



In so assiduously circulating pure 

 air, bees- have three important pur- 

 poses in view: good air for breath- 

 ing: to keep an even temperature in 

 the hive, and to drive off the evapora- 

 tion which arises from their bodies 

 and from the honey they are brewing 

 in their nectar vats. 



