2l8 



TJic Country Gentlewoman 



queen ; this 1 liave done successfully on former 

 occasions. 



Those unacquainted with the economy of 

 the bee, 1 observe, frequently make a mistake 

 in putting the tops or super on the wrong 

 hive, especially in the spring, by generally 

 placing them upon the old stobs, or those that 

 have thrown off swarms, imagining that having 

 done so they must be strong and well able to 

 collect honey, forgetting that it is the young 

 queen which remains in the old hive. And 

 after say the second swarm comes off, leaving 

 but few young bees to hatch which had been 

 laid by the old queen previous to her coming 

 off, the third queen in the old hive may be 

 still unhatched. A week or more may elapse, 

 depending on the weather and other circum- 

 stances, allowing the young c|ueen to get out 

 and be impregnated with the male or drone. 

 In three or four days after that event she 

 begins egg laying, and it takes 21 to 25 days 

 till these are hatched ; consequently, from the 

 time the first queen leaves the old hive, until 

 the third queen's brood has begun to come 

 •out, a period of six weeks at the very soonest 

 must elapse before any increase to the number 

 of bees takes place in the old hive ; so that 

 the few bees kept in, after two swarms have 

 come off, have labour enough to keep up the 

 supply of honey for their existence and to 

 rear the young brood. 



It is therefore the first swarm which went 

 off with the old queen, on which the top or 

 super should be put, as the old queen begins 

 to lay eggs immediately that the workers have 

 made cells in the new hive ; and that is very 

 soon after they have settled. A good swarm 

 will have a large piece of comb made the first 

 night. Those eggs will be out in 21 days, 

 and the bees will be gathering honey in a day 

 or two after. 



After swarming, should the weather become 

 such as to prevent the bees getting out to 

 collect food, they should be fed inside the 

 hive, that they may go on with the comb- 

 making, and allow the queens of the top 

 swarms to go on laying eggs. Every good 

 bee-keeper will make it his chief study and 

 care to use every means to enable the queen 

 to have space to lay all the eggs she is capable 

 of doing (and I believe we have little concep- 

 tion of the number some queens can produce), 

 as it must be evident to every one that the 

 more bees, the more honey will be gathered, 

 if it is to be had. 



I would therefore urge strongly the necessity 

 and the real good which will ultimately follow 

 a liberal supply of honey or boiled sugar, 

 especially to top swarms; the old hives or stobs 

 do not require feeding in the summer-time. 



The kind of food and manner of feeding 

 will be noticed in a future article. 



THE POOR MAN'S MEAT. 



THE quantity of butcher's meat (says the Daily 

 Ncivs) consumed by the poorer classes of Lon- 

 don is considerably greater than is usually supposed. 

 It must not, however, be hastily assumed that this 

 meat is eaten in the shape of beef, pork, or mutton ; 

 on the contrary, large numbers of the poor have 

 been flesh-eaters for years, without once enjoying, 

 imless at rare intervals, the luxury of a bit of beef or 

 mutton. The meat used by them is procured wholly 

 from what is technically termed the "offal" of 

 slaughtered animals, and which forms a most import- 

 ant feature in the metropolitan dead meat trade, 

 its sale generally constituting the principal source 

 from whence the profits of the wholesale butcher 

 are derived. The offal consists of the head, tail. 



kidneys, heart, tongue, liver, skirt, and similar por- 

 tions of the animal ; the feet generally going with the 

 skin or hide. The estimated value of the offal per 

 animal is about 50s. for a bullock, and from los. to 13s. 

 for a sheep. The offal, when fresh, generally forms, 

 in poor neighbourhoods, the most saleable portion of 

 the animal. In Whitechapel a pair of milts can be 

 purchased for a penny. As the two mills together 

 weigh nearly a pound, this forms the cheapest kind of 

 animal food within the reach of the poor, and as such 

 is eagerly sought after. The oxtails are generally dis- 

 posed of, at prices varying from Is. 4d. to 2s., to 

 hotel and dining-room proprietors, as are many of the 

 kidneys, which bring about Is. 4d. Shee]-) kidneys 

 are sold with the portions of the animal to which they 



