1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



657 



slipshod bee-keepers complain that bees do 

 not pay any more. 



The publication of Hannemann's system 

 created a great stir among the German bee- 

 keepers at the time — probably more on ac- 

 count of the novelty of it than for any other 

 reason, although, of course, we all appreciate 

 the queen- excluder. I have not heard of any 

 one in Germany who practices the Hannemann 

 system as he did. Mr. H. Guehler, after sev- 

 eral years of trial, thinks but little of the ex- 

 cluder for his locality, but values highly the 

 queen-cage constructed a la Hannemann. He 

 worked out this system : When the honey sea- 

 son is nicely begun he confines the queens in 

 Hannemann cages, and places them on top of 

 the brood-frames with super, or, as they call 

 it, "honey-chamber," above. The bees, he 

 says, immediately take possession of the su- 

 per, providing honey is coming in. 



When we cage a queen in the brood-nest in 

 an ordinary wire-cloth cage, the bees behave 

 but little differently from what they do when 

 the queen is entirely removed. They almost 

 always construct queen-cells over larvte, and 

 the progress in the sections is slow, if, indeed, 

 any work is done at all. This is according to 

 my experience. But when a queen-cage of 

 the Hannemann order is used, and the bees 

 can communicate freely with the queen, they 

 do not seem to be aware that she is caged at 

 all, and Mr. Guehler finds that every thing 

 moves along in the hive normally. Oueen- 

 cells are not constructed. The combs become 

 heavier and heavier, and the work in the su- 

 per — that is, comb-building and honey-storing 

 — goes right on unless the honey- flow ceases. 

 Guehler thinks it is best to release the queen 

 again after two weeks of confinement, remov- 

 ing at the same time a few of the heavy combs 

 from the center of the brood-nest, inserting 

 comb foundation in their stead. Empty comb 

 does not prove to be a success, as the bees will 

 iill in honey too soon. The bees will draw 

 the foundation into comb just about as fast as 

 the queen can utilize it, and she will at once 

 be ready to enter upon her maternal duties as 

 though she had not been obliged to suspend 

 her work. The bees very readily accept their 

 queen, for in reality they have never been sep- 

 arated from her. Guehler finds that queens 

 come out uninjured by this confinement, prove 

 to be just as fertile, productive, and long- 

 lived, as though they had always had their 

 freedom. When carrying the caging plan to 

 excess — that is, confining the queen for an un- 

 reasonably long time (in this one case he 

 speaks of it was five weeks), laying workers 

 made their appearance. 



It seems, then, that some German bee-keep- 

 ers have modified the Hannemann system to 

 suit their own environments, or picked out the 

 valuable features according to their own judg- 

 ment. I noticed, also, that, after the publica- 

 tion of Hannemann's invention, queen-ciges 

 like his were offered for sale. They consisted 

 simply of a little wooden frame covered with 

 the perforated metal on each side. 



Right here I want to add that some of our 

 German friends across the water have adopt- 

 ed at least some features of our methods, our 



hives and appliances, owing in a great mea- 

 sure, probably, to the efforts made by Mr. 

 Stachelhausen, of Texas, and myself, to en- 

 lighten them on the subject of American bee- 

 hives and our general management of bees. 

 Of course, progress is slow. It seems very 

 hard to give up old methods and adopt new 

 ones. But progress is there. My private cor- 

 respondence with bee-keepers of Germany es- 

 tablishes that fact beyond a doubt. 

 Naples, N. Y., Aug., 1898. 



( Concluded ne.vt issue. ) 



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QUESTIONS 



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ABOUT SEPARATORS. 



Question. — Do you advise the use of sepa- 

 rators in producing comb honey ? A bee- 

 keeping neighbor says that money put in sep- 

 arators is thrown away, and, worse still, be- 

 cause bees will not store as much honey 

 where separators are used as where they are 

 not. What is your opinion in the matter ? 



AriS'cver. — There is no question but bees will 

 store honey in sections without the use of 

 separators; but the question is regarding its 

 marketable shape, where stored without them. 

 I first used separators in 1872 on a small scale, 

 to try the feasibility of them. These were cut 

 so as to leave % inch between top and bottotu 

 of the sections and the separator, as I felt sure 

 they would retard the labor of the bees while 

 storing comb honey, inasmuch as they appar- 

 ently divided the bees into small clusters. 

 To test the matter thoroughly I used a part of 

 the apiary without separators, and even went 

 so far as to leave the bottom pretty much en- 

 tirely off the sections on some hives, to see 

 how much the gain would be ; but at the end 

 of the season each was about balanced as re- 

 gards the result in surplus honey, and I began 

 to think that the claim of more honey with- 

 out separators had no foundation in fact. 

 But I found I had made a blunder in cutting 

 my separators too narrow, in my anxiety to 

 separate the bees as little as possible, for the 

 bees built their combs through the half-inch 

 space, wheie they were in any way crowded 

 for room. 



The next year the separators were cut Yz 

 inch wider, and some were slotted so as to di- 

 vide the bees as little as possible. Some were 

 used with and some without separators. The 

 result was no perceptible difference as to yield, 

 while many of the sections without separators 

 could not be sent to market at all, as the 

 combs in them were so bulged and crooked 

 that it was impossible to crate them. I final- 

 1)' adopted a separator as wide as the inside 

 of the section, less % inch at top and bottom, 

 with no perforations of any kind, and to day, 

 although I have experimented many ways 

 since then, and a quarter of a century has 

 passed away, I see no reason for abandoning 

 the separators as then chosen, but, on the 



