THE AMERICAN APICULTURIST. 



keepers of Austria was "Von Ehren- 

 fels " and his only living pupil is 

 " Karl Gatter," known in Germany 

 as editor of a bee journal. In his 

 boyhood, Gatter would walk uncon- 

 cernedly among the thousands of 

 flying bees in the apiary, early show- 

 ing that coolness in the presence of 

 danger so much needed in a bee 

 master. 



Later on he planted an orchard 

 and busied himself in fruit-raising 

 and bee-raising at the same time. 



In 1864 he went to Vienna spec- 

 ially to give the natural history of 

 bees closer study ; next he went to 

 Norway and Sweden, then south to 

 Italy, studying as he went the various 

 modes of manipulation, gathering 

 knowledge from practical sources as 

 he went along. 



Arrived in Germany, he proceeded 

 to give instruction in beekeeping, 

 and later on became the editor of 

 two journals ; one for bee culture, 

 another for fruit-raising. Gradually 

 his worth became widely recognized 

 and the Emperor of Austria decorated 

 him with a golden cross. Sad to say, 

 his eyesight has failed him through 

 overwork upon his own favorite study. 



The use of camphor for curing foul 

 brood has already been spoken of as 

 used abroad. Madame Adele Jarrie, 

 one of the earliest advocates of the 

 movable frame hive in France, and 

 whose acquaintance I have had the 

 pleasure of personally making in 

 Paris, gives her method of using cam- 

 phor, and quantity she employed. She 

 says she takes common powdered 

 camphor and throws four pinches 

 into a litre (rather more than a 



quart) of syrup made hot, shaken up ; 

 the camphor dissolves and it is then 

 fed to the diseased colony. She also 

 sprinkles powdered camphor right 

 in the hive over the frames contain- 

 ing honey. 



The death's head moth {Sphinx 

 atropos) — great numbers of this in- 

 sect have been observed in certain 

 sections of France this year. A 

 schoolmaster writes that daily in 

 September his pupils would bring him 

 several. The moth was generally 

 caught in the evening in the houses 

 where they entered attracted by the 

 light. The chrysalides were gener- 

 ally found in potato fields at several 

 centimeters beneath the soil and close 

 to the roots. 



This moth is not, I believe, a na- 

 tive of America. It is called death's- 

 head moth, from the fact that the 

 markings on the back of the trunk 

 of the insect exactly resemble a skull 

 and cross-bones. A French author- 

 ity states that it has the power to 

 emit a sharp and plaintive sound 

 which, when uttered close to a hive 

 of bees, causes them to become fright- 

 ened and rush to the entrance, there 

 in a mass to try and prevent its en- 

 try ; and, in many districts where this 

 moth is plentiful, inside the entrances 

 of hives may be found regular walls 

 built up of propolis in such a manner 

 as to successfully exclude these in- 

 sects. In the south of France par- 

 ticularly, and Algeria, the moth is a 

 much dreaded enemy of the bees. 

 Once able to enter a hive of bees, it 

 gorges itself on the honey; they 

 have been taken with as much as fifty 

 grammes of honey in their stomach. 



