174 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



Feb. 1 



ui(3tlu»ds kuowii to the art were there being 

 teheed. The bulletin by Dr. Phillips, on 

 queen-i-earing, based on this work bears tes- 

 timony to the same point. 



I took a few snapshots showing Mr. Mar- 

 tin iu the act of handling the hives; but I 

 was particularly interested in looking at the 

 Caucasians, as I believe most of the visitors 

 are. After Mr. Martin opened the hive I 

 casually remarked that I supposed he could 

 do almost any thing with the bees except ac- 

 tually to kick and pound the hives. Quite 

 to my surprise he gave several of the Cauca- 

 ;ian "colonies a good bumping with his feet, 

 and he actually jarred two or three of the 

 hives a little off their stands. He explained 

 that he did not ordinarily do this; bu*: inas- 

 much as I had tentatively given him the 

 challenge he felt inclined to accept it. The 

 two pictures of the frames of ijees were taken 

 shortly after this rough treatment, and yet 

 there was no resentment, but, on the con- 

 trary, the bees were nicely disposed over 

 the frames, apparently caring little for what 

 had been done; for, during the time, no 

 smoke or veils had been used. 



There was, I believe, one colony of Banat 

 bees and several of Carniolans. In this con- 

 nection I ought to add that the government 

 strait! of these bees (Carniolans) wei'e very 

 gentle. 



After inspecting the government queen- 

 rearing opei'aticjus. Dr. Phillips kindly pilot- 

 etl me over to one of their buildings (a mu- 

 seum, 1 think) where he introduced me to 

 Mr. Holla P. Curry, in (charge. There was 

 an exhibit there, in which Dr. Phillips thought 

 I would be very nuu'h interested. It was 

 nothing more nor less than some wax models 

 of honey-bees and a honey-comb, enlarged 

 to some tive or six inches in length, with 

 combs to correspond. These specimens were 

 made by the celebrated model-maker Auzoux, 

 who, it appears, has made many other mod- 

 els of varitms insects for the Bureau of En- 

 tomology. Notwithstanding that these mod- 

 els of bees were kept in a glass case not easy 

 of acc^ess for the purpose of photographing, 

 Mr. Curry very kindly consented to remove 

 the glass, at no little work, and have the 

 models removed and set outside of the build- 

 ing. They were placed on the steps of the 



WAX MODELS OF HOxVEY-BEES AND HONEY-CO.MB, ENLAKGED TEN TIMES (BY AUZOUX, THE 

 CELEBRATED FRENCH MODEL-M AKEK), ON EXHIBITION IN THE BUREAU OF ENTOMOLOGY, 



WASHINGTON, D. C. 



