THE ITALIAN BEK. 321 



■ gradually became less diligent, till when the buck- wheat came 

 into blossom, they were -surpassed in industry by many colonies 

 of the common bees. But, as young bees continued to make their 

 appearance he felt satisfied that the colony was in a healthy con- 

 dition. Later in the season, he unfastened the hive, preparatory 

 to putting it into winter quarters ; and on attempting to lift it, 

 found he was scarcely able to move it. He now discovered why 

 it had so greatly fallen behind the other colonies in industry. 

 Having early rid itself of drones (as probably is done instinctively 

 in Italy), it had, in consequence of its extraordinary activity, filled 

 all the cells with honey, in a very short time, and was thencefor- 

 ward doomed to involuntary idleness. It had attained a weight 

 which scarcely any of his colonies reached in the Summer of 

 1846, when pasturage was so superabundant; whereas, the Sum- 

 mer of 1853 was a very ordinary one in this respect.* 



^* 'The general diffusion of this species of bee/ says Dzierzon, 

 * will form as marked an era in the bee-culture of Germany, as 

 did the introduction of my improved hives. f The profit derived 

 by the farmer from feeding stock, depends not alone on due atten- 

 tion to the habits and wants of the animals, but mainly on the 



* "His experiments on this colony made it manifest, that frequent distuTbance 

 had not produced any injurious effect. Until Midsummer, he not only removed a 

 brood-comb containing about 5000 cells, every other day, but had, on numerous 

 other occasions, taken out comb after comb, several times a day, to find the queen, 

 and show her to bee-keeping firiends, who visited him. When, in consequence of ' 

 such interruptions, the queen retreated to the opposite end of the hive, he usually 

 found her, half an hour thereafter, on* the same comb sl^e had bccupied before, 

 engaged in laying eggs. Such disturbances, if the combfi^'lbe not broken, or ma- 

 terially damaged, be thinks, do no injury; but that, on the contrary they not 

 unfrequently produce a certain excitement among the bees, whicb impels them to 

 issue in greater numbers, and labor with, increased assiduity." — S. Wagnee. 



t After my application for a patent on the movable-frames was favorably 

 decided upon, the Baron Ton Berlepsch, of Seebach, Thuringia (see p. 126), invented 

 frames of a somewhat similar character. Carl T. E. Yon Siebold, Professor of 

 Zoology and Comparative Anatomy, in the University of Munich, thus speaks of 

 these frames: "As the lateral adhesion of the combs built down from the bars" 

 ^see pp. 15, 16 of this Treatise), "frequently rendered their removal difl&cult, 

 Berlepsch tried to ,aVoid this inconvenience, in a very ingenious way, by suspend- 

 ing in bis hives, instead of the bars, small quadrangular frames, the vacuity o^ 

 which the bees fill up with their comb, by which the removal and suspension of 

 the combs are greatly facilitated, and altogetijer such a convenici^t arrangement is 

 given to the Dzierzon-hive, that nothing more remains to be desired." 

 14* 



