THE ITALIAN BEE. 
321 
gradually became less diligent, till when the buck-wheat came 
into blossom, they were surpassed in industry by many colonics 
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.* 
il ‘The general diffusion of this species of bee,’ says Dzierzon, 
1 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 disturbance 
had not produced any injurious effect. Until Midsummer, he not only removed a 
brood-comb containing about 50U0 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 friends, 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 she had occupied before, 
engaged in laying eggs. Such disturbances, If the combs be not broken, or ma- 
terially damaged, he thinks, do no injury; but that, on the contrary they not 
unfrequently produce a certain excitement among the bees, which impels them to 
issue In greater numbers, and labor with Increased assiduity.” — S. Wagner. 
t After my application for a patent on the movable-frames was favorably 
decided upon, the Baron Von Berlepsch, of Seobach, Thuringia (see p. 126), invented 
frames of a somewhat similar character. Carl T. E. Von 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 difficult, 
Berlepsch tried to avoid this inconvenience, in a very Ingenious way, by suspend- 
ing in his hives, Instead of the bars, small quadrangular frames, the vacuity of 
which the bees fill up with their comb, by which the removal and suspension of 
the combs are greatly facilitated, and altogether such a convenient arrangement is 
given to tl^e Dzlerzon-hivo, that nothing more remains to bo desired.” 
H* 
