I90i 



THE AMERICAN BEE-KEEPER. 



1G7 



to the city of Chiating. Around 

 Chiating are immense orchards or 

 woods planted with a kind of ash tree 

 (Fraxinus sinensis). The "peas" are 

 put in very small sacks and the sacks 

 hung to the trees. The sacks are 

 made with small holes so as to per- 

 mit the insects to come out when they 

 hatch. The females lay their eggs in 

 the cracks of the bark. The males are 

 provided with glands similar to those 

 rhat produce the wax from the worker 

 bees. They plaster up or rather var- 

 nish over the bark of the tree when the 

 eggs have been laid with that varnish. 

 This varnish is really a kind of wax 

 quite white- To harvest it the bark 

 covered with the wax, is raked ofC the 

 trees and put in boiling water. The 

 melted wax comes to the top. 



SPAIN. 



The editor of the Apicultcr tells us 

 that Langstroth Revised is now trans- 

 lated in Spanish and the translation 

 v.'ill be ready next September or there- 

 about. 



SWITZERLAND. 



Mr. Kramer in order to study the 

 working of the bees put a comb of 

 sealed brood from an Italian colony in 

 a colony of black bees. At detailed 

 report of his observations is given, 

 but is too long to insert here. It ap- 

 pears that the bees are about three 

 days old when they begin to feed the 

 queen and the brood. They make 

 their first flight when about five days 

 old, but do not bring in any nectar or 

 pollen until several days older. In 

 concluding his communication, he in- 

 sists that the condition as to flow of 

 nectar, abundance of stores, amount of 

 brood, etc., have a considerable influ- 

 ence on the working of the bees. If 

 necessary quite old bees can take care 

 of the brood and quite young bees will 

 go to the field rather than starve. — Le 

 Rucher Beige. 



An apiculturist of Switzeiiand put a 

 comb of eggs and young brood into 

 a queenless colony, twenty queen-cells 

 were built. Of the 14 cells, two failed. 

 Among the .12 queens obtained,nine 

 were large, and three small, or rather 

 smaller than the other, six were almost 

 black, four moi*e yellow and two well 

 marked. These two last were among 

 the largest. Right here, is an impor- 



tant lesson. In our text books and 

 bee-papers the advice is often given, 

 in order to prevent second swarms, to 

 destroy all the queen cells but one. 

 But as we see by the above, the one 

 cell left m ly fail, or give an inferior 

 queen. Why not cage the last cells 

 and select the queen after the hatch- 

 ing? — Le Rucher Beige. 



It seems to be the aim of the bee- 

 keeping fraternity in Switzerland to 

 not only keep the native brown bee in 

 its purity but to improve the race by 

 selection. I think I have reported be- 

 fore that stations have been establish- 

 ed for the purpose of mating queen 

 bees. Here selected colonies are kept 

 to furnish highbred drones, and keep- 

 ers may send nuclei colonies with 

 virgin queens to their stations and 

 Avhen queens are mated have them re- 

 turned. This would be pretty expen- 

 sive business here in America on ac- 

 count of exorbitant express rates and 

 long distances. In Switzerland neither 

 cut a large figure, and bee-keepers 

 avail themselves of the opportunity. In 

 selecting breeding stock the motto is: 

 "Only the best is good enough." For 

 several successive years a bi'eeding 

 colony must hare distinguished itself 

 by constancy, character, energy, and 

 longevity. Hei*e is an idea, I had not 

 thought of, but one of the tests of long- 

 evity is, a colony with but seven (7) 

 broodframes must be able to populate 

 a large hive. 



GERMANY. 



Broermann writes in Bwsch. Zen- 

 tralblatt of how he prevented swarm- 

 ing during the buckwheat season. He 

 had discovered that a large portion of 

 his prime-swarms as well as the moth- 

 er colonies again made preparations 

 for swarming. After turning his 

 hives bottom side up and leaving them 

 thus for eight days swarming was 

 given up by his bees. 



(The same thing has been tried here 

 when reversible frames and hives had 

 their time, but if I remember right did 

 not prove altogether a success). 



According to the Phalz Bztg. Distler 

 has succeeded in producing a none- 

 swarming strain of bees. Two years 

 ago he received from his 30 colonies 

 only two swarms which were lead by 

 virgin queens: last year his bees cast 

 no swarms at all. 



