THE BEE-KEEPERS' REVIEW. 



11 



cutting tifty-four cells from the three end 

 combs of one stock I gave it up. Every 

 native colony was in the same condition, 

 and beautiful straight combs of worker 

 cells were ruined. Quite M per cent of the 

 whole were only tit for melting down. " 



The following is taken from the " Stand- 

 ard, " perhaps an Euglish newspaper : " The 

 native bee-master has no longer business 

 in his own hands. Foreign competition is 

 keen, and from the extensive apiaries of 

 Southern California and other parts of 

 America thousands of tons of honey come 

 every year. * * * Above all, the grocer 

 can make certain of receiving a steady sup- 

 ply of a perfectly uniform quality, and as 

 soon as the customers get accustomed to a 

 particular brand, be it of butter, or cheese, 

 or dried fruits, or JH.m, or honey, it is diffi- 

 cult to persuade them to take any other. * 

 * * Hence, he prefers to buy the Califor- 

 nian importation, even though it yields him 

 no more profit, if he cannot reckon on be- 

 ing steadly sui)plied through some such 

 agency as that which the Secretary of the 

 Berkshire Bee-Keepers' Association and 

 other correspondents describe. The labeled 

 guarantee of such a society is itself a ' brand. ' 



Speaking of his house-apiary, VV. M'Nally 

 says " There is no floor ( it is just placed on 

 the level ground ), as it is better without it. " 

 ( >ue of the correspondents of Gleanings, I 

 notice, is of the same opinion, only he raises 

 his ground floor by spreading over it a lay- 

 er of loose earth. 



Foul brood examinations, to qualify as 

 experts, is an Eaglish feature which, might 

 bear transplanting to this country. 



" After careful trial as to specific gravity, 

 tenacity, and density of given samples [ of 

 wax ], T found the most reliable test for 

 rough and ready purposes is the melting 

 point. " — H. W. Brice. 



Leipziger Bienenzeitung. — This journal 

 now has 19, .500 readers. 



Alois Alfonsus objects to cement presses. 

 ( See page Hll. ) Though for some time the 

 use of water alone is sufficient to remove the 

 sheets from the press, yet fatty or waxy 

 particles soon enter the pores of the cement, 

 compelling the user to adopt some other 

 means. The cement press, with melted 

 wax. is not convenient for large-sized sheets. 

 It does not last long ; one bee-keeper makes 

 a practice of renewing his every year. But 

 after eight years' experience with one of 

 the metal presses of B. Rietsche, Biberach, 



Baden, Germany, Hert Alfonsus is so well 

 satisfied with it as to recommend every bee- 

 keeper to own one. For a lubricant he uses 

 one part of honey to two parts of water and 

 three of pure alcohol. With the aid of this 

 he can make and trim (iO sheets an hour, 

 without the help of an assistant or a cool- 

 ing-vat. If desired, he says, they can be 

 made so thin that they can not be excelled 

 l)y the product of a mill. The last 

 statemgnt may be questioned ; but the 

 others are worth considering. 



Herr Freudenstein, a queen-breeder, does 

 not believe that queens with defective wings 

 ever remain in the hive and become drone- 

 laying, but that they are always lost in at- 

 tempting to fly. However that may be, I 

 had one queen which was in the hive several 

 weeks after being hatched, though she had 

 lain no eggs. Oa throwing her up in the 

 air several times, I found she could not fly. 

 That point may depend on whether the hives 

 sit on the ground or not. 



He considers that drone-laying results 

 from imperfect mating, and is accidental, 

 the male organ, after mating, for some 

 reason not preventing the escape of the 

 seminal fluid before it has time to enter the 

 spermatheca, so that comparatively few 

 spermatozoa are saved. Out of several 

 thousand queens fertilized lie has never had 

 one that laid drone-egg.? at the start. I 

 have had one such queen. She was of .5- 

 banded stock, and her mother came from 

 one of our best queen-breeders. She never 

 laid anything but drone-eggs. Some of her 

 sisters were also largely drone-layers, though 

 not altogether. They were all deficient in 

 some respect or other. The only explana 

 tion that could be made for the worthless- 

 ness of this stram, which ought to have been 

 a good one, was that it had long been bred 

 only to the requirement of a certain locality. 

 It goes to show, at any rate, that drone- 

 laying is not accidental. 



"May sickness," perhaps the same as 

 paralysis with us, caused a loss of over '.V) 

 per cent of :{r>0 colonies belonging to a local 

 association, and greatly weakened the rest 

 so that they did not build up until after the 

 flow. E. Clauss, who reports the matter, 

 suggests a new theory of the cause. Three 

 colonies, all that one member had, escaped 

 entirely and were rich in bees and honey 

 throughout the season. Owing to the igno- 

 rance of their owner, they were completely 

 unprotected the previous winter. The rea- 



