896 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1 



and Luxemburg; but the bulk are actually 

 published iu Germany proper. 



-The bee-keepers in these countries are 

 splendidly organized, and, as a mile, inclined 

 to be scientihc. But the hives in general use 

 are not equal to those of Britain and France. 

 Of late they have started to copy our hives, 

 and some dealers are selling an exact coun- 

 terpart of the Dovetailed and the Danzen| 

 baker. 



In wax-extractors they excel. Deep-cell 

 foundation is used by some, but it is safe to 

 say no American bee-keeper would use it, 

 for it is both very heavy and expensive. 

 Their honey-extractors are also inferior to 

 ours. One bee-journal, however, does noth- 

 ing but advocate American methods, though 

 this must be regarded in the light of "Can 

 any good come out of Nazareth? " 



The German, Austrian, and Hungarian 

 bee-keepers meet this year in August at 

 Frankfort on the Main. Next year they meet 

 at Bukawina, at the extreme end of the Aus- 

 trian-Hungarian empire, bordering on Rus- 

 sia. They muster in great numbers at these 

 meetings. 



Hungarian bee-keeping is well to the front, 

 and compares with Austria very well. Den- 

 mark, Norway, and Sweden have bee-papers 

 copying largely from our American journals. 

 Russia does a great deal in bee-keeping, and 

 maintains several bee-journals gotten up in 

 good shape. They turn some of their letters 

 upside down, so we shall not read what they 

 say. 



Italy maintains two good bee-papers, but 

 does not do as much as we should naturally 

 expect from so favorably situated a country. 

 In North Italy the industry is well develop- 

 ed, however. 



Spain and Portugal are backward in api- 

 culture, and neither has a bee journal at pres- 

 ent. So is Greece. Roumania has or had a 

 bee-journal. Servia patterns after Hungary. 



Algeria and Tunis are prominent bee 

 countries. The former, until lately, had a 

 bee jom-nal; but this was given up in favor 

 of Mr. Bondonneau's paper, AjncuUure Nou- 

 velle. Tunis still keeps up its paper; and 

 the bee-keepers' society thei*e is quite wide- 

 awake. They stick up for the Punic bee on 

 all occasions, and probably it suits their 

 conditions as well as any. Africa may be 

 considered the homeland of the bee known 

 to science as Apis mellijica, and bee culture 

 is a successful industry over the entire con- 

 tinent. Even the Sahara has its apiaries lo- 

 cated on the oasis where the date palm is 

 the leading honey-plant. Egypt keeps its 

 bees as of yore when the Pharoahs ruled the 

 land. According to Schweinfurth the bees 

 over a large part of Africa greatly resemble 

 our hybrids in color, and according to some 

 travelers their temper is about the same. 



Quite possibly it would pay to make an 

 investigation of the bees of Africa, but it 

 would be a rather expensive business for 

 an individual in any event. We know that 

 there are several distinct species of bees in 

 Africa and its islands, but our information 

 0,3 to their real value to us is next to nothing. 



MAKING INCREASE VS. BUYING COL- 

 ONIES. 



Buying Bees in Hives of all Kinds and 

 Shapes a Bad Plan; Danger of Bringing 

 in Fonl Brood: How to Make Early In- 

 crease. 



BY E. W. ALEXANDER. 



This question is of considerable importance 

 to those who have but few colonies and are 

 anxious to secure a larger number as soon as 

 possible. If we could buy good Italian bees 

 at a fair price in the same kind of a hive we 

 use, tilled with good worker combs, then it 

 might be as well to buy part of our increase 

 as to make them from the colonies we al- 

 ready have; but this we can seldom do unless 

 we buy of a supply-dealer. Then we can 

 get a good standard hive with good combs 

 and as choice a queen as we care to pay for. 



If you want to buy bees I think, when all 

 things are considered, this is the better party 

 to buy from. 



If we get our bees of some one who has 

 never kept more than a few colonies and is 

 anxious to go out of the business, then we 

 usually get hives of bixt little value except 

 for kindling-wood, and combs tit only for 

 wax, with queens from one to five years old, 

 of all grades, from fairly well-mated Italians 

 down the line to the blacks. 



But sometimes it is best to buy these al- 

 most worthless colonies in order to get them 

 where their drones can be destroyed. In this 

 case you had better Italianize them as soon 

 as possible, then set on top one of your stand- 

 ard hives tilled with combs, one of which 

 contains brood; then put their queen on this 

 frame of brood and put a queen-excluder be- 

 tween the hives so as to keep the queen in 

 the upper hive; then in 2) days take out the 

 under hive and use it as you see lit. Your 

 aluaost worthless colony will now be Ital- 

 ianized and nicely transferred to your staml- 

 ard hive. This we find is the most practical 

 method of disposing of those undesirable col- 

 onies which were in hives of all forms and 

 sizes. 



If your circumstances are such that you 

 can hardly affoi'd to sacrifice a part of your 

 surplus in making increase, then you must 

 be careful and make only such increase as 

 will add to your surplus. This is an easy 

 thing to do where the principal harvest 

 comes in August; but if it is in June, then it 

 requires the most thorough knowledge of 

 the best methods of reai'ing queens and di- 

 viding colonies that have ever been practiced, 

 in order to make it a success. 



Those of us who produce extracted honey 



