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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. 



GEKMANY. 



A GERMAN CONVENTION. 

 The great annual convention of the Ger- 

 man and Austrian bee-keepers was held in 

 Danzig, the Venice of the North, and was 

 well attended. As many as 25 addresses 

 were recorded on the program, but a por- 

 tion of the speakers were absent. Dudeck, 

 the first speaker, talked about the needs of 

 fresh air for the bees in winter. Guen- 

 ther followed with a discussion of the dif- 

 ferent bee hives and different sized frames; 

 also about the secrets of obtaining large 

 honey yields. (Guenther is one of the 

 oldest and still active bee-keepers of Ger- 

 many.) Rev. Sydow tried to explain "Why 

 the bees build their cells hexagonal." The 

 debate following showed that there were 

 many men of different minds. Bassler, 

 Austria, spoke next on sugar-feeding in the 

 bee yard, which created considerable stir. 

 The meeting passed the following resolu- 

 tions: 



1. We denounce all sugar-feeding when 

 it is done for the purpose of selling the 

 product as honey. 



2. We do not recommend the taking of 

 all the honey from our bees and substitut- 

 ing sugar syrup. 



3. We recommend to substitute sugar for 

 unwholesome honey such as honey dew; al- 

 so the feeding of sugar to insure the neces- 

 sary winter stores when such are short." 



The subject of foul brood received its 

 share of the attention next. Lichtenthaler 

 brought out as "something new" (?) that 

 the spreading of the disease was largely 

 owing to the practice of exchanging combs 

 from one hive to the other. 



A desire was manifested for an effective 

 foul brood law. 



In the line of law making, Fitczeck spoke 

 on the lack of protection that the bee and the 

 bee business received from the general gov- 

 ernment. This was supplemented by Heydt, 

 who urged that sugar refineries, candy shops, 

 etc., should be compelled to keep their fac- 

 tories screened, thus excluding bees. 



Among other topics discussed at this meet- 



ing were "Half-story or Full-story Frames 

 in the Brood Chamber, or Both," "The De- 

 velopment of Bee-keeping," and the "Hold- 

 ing of Bee-keepers' Institutes. 



In rendering wax Editor Reidenbach 

 found that when using hard water in the 

 process, the resulting wax cakes were part- 

 ly of a spongy nature, the lime of the 

 water combining with the wax and form- 

 ing a grayish body on the underside of each 

 cake. When using rain water no such de- 

 posit reAilted and the color of the wax 

 in general was much brighter. (The com- 

 piler of this has a similar experience with 

 hard water and will look into the matter 

 at an early date.) — Pfalz. Bztg. 



Dennler reports, in Elz. Lothr. Bzchtr., 

 very favorably of the Golden American bees, 

 says, they are beauties indeed, and are as 

 profitable as they are handsome. 



Extracting combs should be cleaned up 

 b\ the bees btlore storing away for win- 

 ter is the verdict of Ludwig in Leipz. Lztg. 

 (Just so.) 



In regard to the general management of 

 bees, L. Vogel lays down the following four 

 theses in Deutsche Bzcht. : 



1. Every colony which has not swarmed 

 by July 1st should be compelled to discon- 

 tinue brood rearing for four weeks. 



2. At the beginning of July all supers 

 should be removed so that the best honey 

 may be stored in the brood chamber for 

 winter stores. 



3. The majority of colonies should be re- 

 queened in July. — 



4. For stimulating the bees, the feeding 

 of honey is to be preferred. 



The last numbers of the German bee- 

 periodicals are full of convention reports. 

 To the compiler of this the chief attrac- 

 tions of these conventions seem to be: sight 

 seeing, social amusements, concerts, theatres, 

 drinking, smoking and eating with compara- 



