240 



THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



are left four or five days after swarming, 

 and since then his queens are not only 

 handsomer, but decidedly better. 



Young queens, says Editor Weippl, 

 should not be hastily condemned if they 

 do not lay much at first. Many queens 

 arrive at their full prolificness only after 

 mon'lis; sometimes not until the next 

 year. 



FINDING QUEENS INDOORS. 



For finding queens in colonies that are 

 kept in bee-houses or pavilions, a writer 

 in the Magyar Meh is quoted as recom- 

 mending a small mirror stationed on the 

 outside so that the sun's rays will be re- 

 flected so as to throw light on the combs 

 while examined by the operator inside. 

 (With a window near every hive, this 

 might be applied al^o where one is look- 

 ing for eggs in a house-apiar}^ ) 



TIN COMBS For SURPI.US. 



To limit brood-rearing at will, Julius 

 Steigel prefers deep-cell, artificial, tin 

 combs coated with wax to the use of ex- 

 cluders. He has never known the queen 

 to lay in them except in a single instance. 

 In that case the eggs were deposited on 

 the side walls of the cells, but the larvae 

 that hatched, he thinks, could not reach 

 the food at the bottom, and did not sur- 

 vive. 



THE ORIGIN OF HONEY DEW. 



Gaston Bonnier, professor at the Sor- 

 bonne, Paris, who has made honey dew 

 a special study, agrees that in most cases 

 it is of insect origin; but that which is 

 secreted in the morning, not during the 

 heat of the day, is an exudation of the 

 plant similar to nectar, as is proved by 

 the fact that it can be artificially produc- 

 ed on the leaves of branches on which 

 there are absolutely no insects, by sub- 

 jecting them to the same atmospheric 

 conditions. 



According to the Swiss observing 

 stations, colonies united late in the fall 

 are re. five during the winter, and con- 

 sume more. 



SHAPE OF FRAMES AND THE WINTERINfi 

 OF BEES. 



Rudolf Dathe found that colonies on 

 normal German frames, which are about 

 equivalent to a Langstroth frame set on 

 end, required 15 to 20 pounds for winter 

 stores, and 5 to 7 pounds more in the 

 spring, while colonies on Gerstung's 

 frames, which are the same depth but 

 considerably broader, required 30 pounds 

 for wintering and 15 to 20 pounds more 

 in the spring; while the surplus yield of 

 both sets at the end of July was the 

 same. 



EXCREMENTAL DISCHARGES. 



Gottfried Rumber contends that the 

 deposit on the bottom-board in winter 

 is mainly dry excrement of the bees. 

 To prove it, let some of this stuff be put 

 into a glass of water, and some into a 

 glass of ether. It will nearly all sink in 

 the water, showing it is not fragments of 

 wax; and in the ether, vv'hich dissolves 

 all wax, it settles to the bottom, and is 

 not dissolved. The water in which it 

 is put has a strongly bitter taste, like 

 pollen. Examined by an ordinary mag- 

 nifying glass, a characteristic form of 

 the particles is seen to resemble a 

 curved sausage. The particles are not 

 excrements of the wax-moth, for they are 

 of a different size and shape. If some 

 healthy bees are enclosed in a bell-shaped 

 glass, and the latter inverted over clean 

 white paper and left 24 hours, with pro- 

 vision for ventilation, particles of the 

 same form and color will be seen strewn 

 on the paper. Spots resembling those 

 caused by diarrhoea are also sometimes 

 seen, but rarely, and may come from un- 

 healthy bees, or because the glass was 

 not warm enough. He therefore con- 

 cludes that normal, healthy bees discharge 

 their excrement at all times and when- 

 ever they please, in or out of the hive, 

 and that this excrement is in the form of 

 dry, firm particles; that so-called cleans- 

 ing flights are absolutely unnecessary 

 and even injurious to healthy bees, as the 

 weather is generally cool and many 



