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THE 



Bee -Keeping World 



staff Contributors : F. GREINER and ADRIAN GETAZ. 



Contributions to this Department are solicited from all quarters of the earth. 



RUSSIA.. 



Illustr. Bztg. says this about bee- 

 keeping in Russia: It is frequently 

 said that the bee-keepers of Russia are 

 100 years behind the times, but this is 

 anything but true. There are many up- 

 to-date bee-keepers, many of them fav- 

 oring American methods and using 

 American hives. Five or six apicultural 

 journals disseminate knowledge as to 

 bee-keeping. Conditions for honey pi o- 

 duetion are more favorable in the 

 South and East than they are in Ger- 

 many, although there are sometimes 

 years of failure, as, for instance, 1903. 

 Editor Kandratjeff reports that bees 

 did not gather their winter supplies in 

 many places. 



GERMANY. 



'jx large portion of the German bee- 

 keepers cari-y on the business on a 

 small scale; if they did not they would 

 not put up with such implements as 

 we understand find ready sale among 

 them. One of these implemencs is de- 

 scribed and illustrated in the Deutsche 

 Btzg., viz.: a honey extractor without 

 can. It seems like a mere play thing; 

 during the time it is not in use as an 

 extractor it may be used as a flower- 

 stand. Their wax-presses may be 

 used as fruit-presses. 



ABESSINIA. 



It is said of Abessinia that honey is 

 as plentiful there as "dirt." Bees are 

 everywhere. Set up an empty hive and 

 in a week's time it will be occupied by 

 bees. It is an easy matter for the Abes- 

 sinians to find wild bees. A certaiii 

 bird of the size of a swallow, called 

 honey-bird, shows the way. The bird 

 is always rewarded by a piece of the 

 honey and brood. (From Praxis dev 

 Bzcht.) 



"Make your own comb foundation 

 from pure German wax. This is im- 

 portant, and is the only guarantee to 

 get good serviceable foundation," says 

 Illustr. Btzg. (That speaks bad for 

 Germany.) 



BELGIUM. 

 Soldiers receive in this country ra- 

 tions of honey during hot weather. 

 <Bienenvater.) 



SCOTLAND. 

 The bee-keepers in Scotland, it is 

 said in Schleswig-Holstein Bztg., pre- 

 fer a honey-press to the extractor for 

 the reason that a large part of their 

 honey is gathered from the Erica, and 

 this honey is so thick, that it cannot 

 be extracted successfully. Bee-keep- 

 ers in many parts of Germany are sim- 

 ilarly situated. The only way to ob- 

 tain this honey is by heat or sque(.'z- 

 ing. 



Worker-brood developed in cells with 

 a glass side, is what F. Ebster reports 

 in Leipz. Bztg. It came about accident- 

 ally. He had a single comb observa- 

 tion hive stocked up with a goo4 strong 

 nucleus colony. The hive was made a 

 little bit too wide, and yet not wide 

 enough to justify the bees in building 

 a second comb. They finally construct- 

 ed a half -comb, using the glass side as 

 the mid-rib. A part of the comb was 

 so constructed as to make the glass 

 Willi answer as one side of a cell or 

 cells. These cells were preferred by 

 the queen to those Avhich were built at 

 right angle against the glass. The 

 laying of the egg, the behavior of the 

 eggs before hatching, i. e., changing 

 their angle to the bases, the hatching 

 out of the larvae and the nursing of 

 them from beginning to end, then the 

 changes during the pupa stage, all this 

 could be easily and plainly watched. 

 The same hive with comb was used 

 several seasons, but after the second 

 season the process of development 

 could not well be seen on account of 

 the cocoons, which were left in the 



