138 THE BEE-HIVES. 



3S3. "As the best test of the value of Mr. Dzierzon's system 

 is the results which have been made to flow from it, a brief ac- 

 count of its rise and progress may be found interesting. In 1835, 

 he commenced bee-keeping in the common way, with twelve 

 colonies, and after various mishaps which taught him the defects 

 of the common hives and the old mode of management, his stock 

 was so reduced, that, in 1838, he had virtually to begin anew. Al; 

 this period he contrived his improved hive, in its ruder form, 

 which gave him the command over all the combs, and he began 

 to experiment on the theory which observation and study had 

 enabled him to devise. Thenceforward his progress was as 

 rapid, as his success was complete and triumphant. Though he 

 met with frequent reverses, about seventy colonies having been 

 stolen from him, sixty destroyed by flre, and twenty-four by a 

 flood, yet, in 1846, his stock had Increased to three hundred and 

 sixty colonies, and he realized from them that year six thousand 

 pounds of honey, besides several hundred weight of wax. At the 

 same time, most of the cultivators in his vicinity, who pursued 

 the common methods, had fewer hives than they had when he 

 commenced. 



"In the year 1848, a fatal pestilence, known by the name of 

 'foul brood' (TST), prevailed among his bees, and destroyed 

 nearly all his colonies before it could be subdued, only about ten 

 having escaped the malady which attacked alike the old stocks 

 and his artificial swarms. (469). He estimates his entire loss 

 that year at over Ave hundred colonies. Nevertheless, he suc- 

 ceeded so well in multiplying by artificial swarms, the few that 

 remained healthy, that, in the Fall of 1851, his stock consisted 

 of nearly four hundred colonies. He must therefore have multi- 

 plied his stocks more than three-fold each year." 



But in the Dzierzon hive, it is often necessary to cut and 

 remove many combs to get access to a particular one ; thus 

 if the tenth from the end is to be removed, nine must be 

 taken out. This hive cannot furnish the surplus honey in a 

 form the most salable in our marliets, or admitting of safe 

 transportation in the comb. Notwithstanding these disad- 

 vantages, it has achieved a great triumph in Germany, and 

 given a new Impulse to the cultivation of bees. 



Dzierzon builds hives in structures of two, four and even 

 more colonies, piled upon one another. On the frontispiece 



