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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. 



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BELGIUM. 



Mr. Richards, of Ain.sterdam, under- 

 took to keep one colony of bees in tlie 

 cit.T. There was no other available 

 place but the very low attic of his 

 house. He was compelled to place 

 the entrance at the top. A little later 

 he moved to the suburbs, took there 

 his colony of bees. The entrance re- 

 mained where it was — that is between 

 the brood nest and the supers. An- 

 other colony was bought, with the en- 

 trance below as usual. The first 

 colony, with the entrance above, gave 

 every year during three years a large 

 amount of surplus, once as much as 

 five supers (about the size of the sup- 

 ers used by the Dadants) and never of- 

 fered to swarm. The other, during 

 these three years, gave about one super 

 every year and sAvarmed in spite of 

 all efforts to prevent it. After that 

 Mr. Richards changed also the en- 

 trance of the second hive, and from 

 thar time, he obtained from it the same 

 result, as he did from the first; that 

 is no swarms and from each abbut 200 

 lbs of extracted honej every year. 

 The only inconvenience is that the 

 bees are unable to keep the bottom of 

 the hive clean and it must be cleaned 

 occasionally. A second entrance at 

 the bottom might be put in, and open- 

 ed occasionally. For the winter it 

 might be better to close the top one 

 and leave the lower one open to avoid 

 loss of heat. — Revue Internationale. 



In a local daily paper of Belgium, 

 an advertisement of superior "table 

 honey" was inserted. After a few 

 days a bee-keeper of the neighborhood 

 put in the same paper an ad. stathig 

 that the aforesaid "talile honey" was 

 nothing Init sugar syrup, colored with 

 something or other and fiavored with a 

 little .strong dark honey. The effect 

 was immediate. The ad. about table 

 )ney dissapeared from the paper and 

 the stuff itself from the grocery where 

 6t had been kept. — I>e Rucher Beige. 



Last year{l903) The Society of Ag- 

 riculture of the Province of Brande- 

 burg in Belgium, distributed a large 

 amount of phacelia seed to its mem- 

 bers with a request to report. All ex- 

 cept two reported it to be an exception- 

 ally superior honey plant, having the 

 additional advantage to produce nec- 

 tar nearly as well during dry weather 

 as during faAorable weather. As for- 

 age, either green or dry, it is decided- 

 ly inferior and not likely to ever come 

 into use for that purpose. All agree 

 that the plant will grow in any kind of 

 soil. The experiments made at the Ag- 

 ricol Institute of Berlin show that the 

 phacelia does not fix the nitrogen of 

 the air like the clovers and similar 

 plants and therefore is not very valu- 

 able for green manuring purposes. — 

 Le Rucher Beige. 



The honey from the heath is some- 

 times so thick that it is almost impos- 

 sible to extract it. Mr. Manfroid ad- 

 vises to use a kind of comb or brush 

 with wire teeth to perforate the combs 

 throughout so as to have the bottoms 

 of the cells perforated. The pressure 

 of the air on the inside of the combs 

 helps to "push" the honey out and en- 

 ables the apiarist to. extract the thick- 

 est honey he may have. — Le Rucher 

 Beige. 



One winter Mr. Sior had a colony 

 A^hose bees were nearly every day out, 

 so to speak, and very often when the 

 weather was quite unfavorable. Of 

 course, the loss of bees was consider- 

 able and Mr. Sior ,saw that if the thing 

 kept on that way, only a few bees 

 would be left at the end of the winter. 

 To cool them down, he uncovered the 

 hive and poked in several handfulls of 

 snow and closed it again. That 

 stopped their going out so completely 

 that Mr. Sior did not know but that the 

 colony might have been nearly frozen. 

 As a matter of fact, it turned out that 

 the snow had melted and furnished the 

 bees the water they needed, and there- 



