1898 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



693 



Another point Mr. Hanneniann was trying 

 to make out of Grimm's reports was that the 

 climate must be unsuitable for bee-keeping 

 here, for a neighbor of Grimm had U9 colonies 

 out of 100 frozen to death one winter. Here 

 Mr. Hanneniann overlooks the fact that, al- 

 though a country may have very severe win- 

 ters, and actually freeze the bees (a condition 

 I can not imagine, however), yet the summers 

 may be warm, flowers may be plentiful, and 

 the meteorological conditions very favorable 

 for the secretion of nectar. There is no dovibt 

 that a mild climate is favorable for the winter- 

 ing of bees, and most of us wish we had that ; 

 but what of the hard winters ? Are we help- 

 less? Why has God given us our intelligence? 

 Have we no means to combat the zero weath- 

 er? Why ! if necessary we could bring about 

 a condition of 90 degrees in the shade every 

 day in the year, as Herr Weygandt has prov- 

 en with his heated bee-house. If only the 

 summers are conducive to the welfare of our 

 bees, and the honey-producing blossoms are 

 present, the winter is no objection. Why, I 

 believe we could keep bees away up at the 

 north pole if we could only get there. 



Mr. Hanneniann expresses his opinion of 

 the North American and his surroundings like 

 this : " I esteem him highly as a man of prog- 

 ress ; but to carry on apiculture successfully 

 there are obstacles in his way that, with all his 

 intelligence and ingenuity, he can never (?) 

 hope to overcome. With steam and machine- 

 ry he may be able to make very accurately his 

 hives, etc. ; but to stock them up requires a 

 good deal of money, so it seems ; and, after 

 being stocked up, it requires the right kind of 

 man, who must be possessed with love for and 

 knowledge of the bees ; he must have an ex- 

 tensive experience, etc. The climate must be 

 suitable for bee-keeping so the colonies will 

 send out a goodly number of swarms ; and 

 when these are on hand they must be massed 

 together by forming giant colonies in order to 

 obtain the best results. This is the only way." 



The reader may ask here, "Why bring up 

 all this after twenty years have passed ? ' ' 

 Does it not show that even the wise are blind 

 sometimes, and that half of the people do not 

 know what the other half are doing ? I think 

 our good old friend A. I. R. could draw some 

 valuable lessons from it, and bring them to 

 our understanding. I write the above, prin- 

 cipally in the hope of entertaining, perhaps 

 amusing, my bee-keeping friends, and to bring 

 out some good points that may be of value to 

 some of them. 



I have no old grudge against friend Hanne- 

 niann, although I admit I felt somewhat indig- 

 nant at first. That has all past. I now feel 

 only my indebtedness to him. He was proba- 

 bly excusable for holding an adverse opinion 

 of us American bee-keepers. 



In criticising the Hannemann system, and 

 in comparing it with our method, I wish to 

 say this : The methods he pvirsued were prob- 

 ably all right for his particular environments, 

 and much ahead of any thing else known to 

 him them ; but after all, the Yankee could 

 and would greatly improve upon them. We 

 would not only use the extractor, but also fur- 



nish the bees much if not all the combs need- 

 ed. I am svire it would be impractical to use 

 the giant hives and the cages a la Hannemann 

 for the production of section honey, on ac- 

 count of the pollen that would probably be 

 stored in many of them. But should we pur- 

 sue the Hanneniann method to the letter we 

 should probably make an article of commerce 

 of the pollen harvested, and find a way to pre- 

 serve it. I think I could sell some of it to 

 friend Perry, friend Olmstead, and others, 

 who are in need of it for spring feeding. A 

 further improvement of the Hannemann system 

 would be the liberal use of comb foundation, 

 particularly with the view of preventing the 

 raising of the millions of useless drones that 

 have to be sifted out and disposed of. Of 

 course, they would make splendid food for 

 ducks, and I would certainly make use of 

 them in this way if I raised them at all. Fi- 

 nally, I would adopt the Langstroth or Ber- 

 lepsch frame insiead of the bar, a la Dzierzon, 

 thus preventing the mussy, disagreeable work 

 of cutting out the honey, etc. All these are 

 improvements of the Hanneniann system, 

 which suggest themselves to the thinking 

 mind ; with them, I believe, Hannemann 

 might double the yield that he has been able 

 to obtain. 



I wonder what he would think of such 

 yields as Mr. Levesy reports in American Bee 

 Journal, page 452, of a bee-keeper in Salt 

 Lake Co., Utah — an average of 363 lbs. of ex- 

 tracted; or the yield of J. P. Israel, the cham- 

 pion comb-honey producer of the world, re- 

 ported to be 662 lbs. of comb honey per col- 

 ony. Such yields are phenomenal indeed. 

 Are they true, or only "on paper"? If Mr. 

 Hannemann has seen the photos of our honey 

 exhibits at the Centennial, or their reproduc- 

 tions, he may now conclude that the North 

 American, with his intelligence and proverbial 

 ingenuity, can well overcome obstacles that 

 seem unconquerable to him, which, however, 

 existed largely in his imagination. If that 

 does not convince him I am afraid nothing 

 will. 



Naples, N. Y., July, 189S. 



ANSWERS TO / 



SEASONABLE 



QUESTIONS 



\_ <^ ^.<^^ ^'^»^ou^.^ ^> ^ ^ ^ J 



FROM THE EGG TO THE PERFECT BEE. 



Question . — I see by the bee-papers that 

 some seem to think that the bee remains in 

 the larval form only about four days, while 

 Dr. Miller put it at five days in a late number 

 of Gleanings. Which is right ? In some of 

 our operations with bees it would sometimes 

 make quite a difference with our calculations 

 if bees hatched sooner than we expected, es- 

 pecially so in queen -rearing. 



Answer. — Well, when Dr. Miller makes a 

 positive assertion in any matter it is quite apt 

 to be correct; but, as a rule, we find him say- 



