January 4, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



25 



arranged in tiers in a circular pit bedded 'n-ith straw. All is 

 covered over with the same material, and completely boarded 

 tind protected from the influences of the weather by layers of 

 earth surrounding all. Ample provision is made by flannels 

 and other means for the circulation of air, and prevention of 

 damp, by upward ventilation through the apex of the pyramid, 

 &e. In this clamp they are shut up from November to April, 

 and " jjass the winter (says Mr. Scholtz) uninjui'ed from damp 

 and moisture, and with less consumption of stores." 



The celebrated Dzierzou usually winters some of his weaker 

 colonies in a dry cellar, and " they alwaj's do well." "Universal 

 experience (writes Dzierzon) teaches that the more effectually 

 bees are protected from disturbance, and from the variations 

 of temperature, the better will they pass the winter, the less 

 wiU they consume of their stores, and the more vigorous and 

 numerous wiU they be in the spring." 



Notwithstanding such testimonies, however, to "in-door 

 ■wintering " and to burying in clamps, I am not inclined to 

 think that there is any necessity for apiarians in this country 

 having recourse to either of these practices. They are attended 

 with au amount of trouble and constant supervision which 

 contrast unfavourably with the simpler methods adopted in 

 our own land ; and De Geheu, who has tested the different 

 modes of " out-door and in-door wintering " m his country, 

 most decidedly prefers the former. " The following winter (he 

 writes), I left out the one half of my hives, and moved the 

 other half into a cold room, according to my usual custom, 

 when all the pains I bestowed upon them did not altogether 

 keep them aUve, nor preserve them from damp and infection. 

 In vain I swept and cleaned the boards, or placed them on dry 

 hay to absorb the moisture ; in vain I gave them capes or 

 joinings. With all my care there was not one of them free of 

 diseases and infection. The winter was long and severe ; and 

 they could not be returned to the ah- before the last week in 

 March, by which time they were feeble and languid, and far 

 less prosperous than those that had passed the winter out of 

 doors. From that time I have never taken one into the 

 house." 



I am not inclined, therefore, to recommend either of the 

 methods adopted by American or German apiarians of wintering 

 our bees, either in cold, dry, dark cellars, or in clamps, alias 

 burjing pits. Far less should I be disposed to approve of the 

 new mode of wintering bees by the American apiarian Mr. 

 Hosmer, brought before our notice in the Journal of 14th 

 December, by your esteemed correspondent, " B. d- W." In 

 cases of necessity we might, with Dzierzou, try some of our 

 weaker colonies within-doors, or such as are domiciled in 

 uuicombs, adopting a constant supervision over them, but to 

 purposely divide our strong hives in autmuu for the sake of 

 a questionable economy in the mere consmnption of a few 

 pounds of honey, is, in my opinion, the very reverse of good 

 management. " Experience, in this matter, is the best school- 

 master," for we all know that a weak hive in autumn is, as a 

 rule, a weak hive in spring. On the principle, therefore, that 

 " union is strength," in the case of the bee as of man, and 

 believing, with Bonner, that " one (really) good hive is worth 

 four bad ones," I cannot approve of the breaking-up or 

 division of strong families in autumn. 



Although I perfectly agree with Mr. Hosmer in the desir- 

 abihty of encouraging late breeding in autumn, with the view 

 of securing a preponderance of the youthful element in every 

 stock hive, having directed the attention of apiarians to this 

 subject some years ago in the Journal, yet I should not, like 

 " B.& W.," desire to get rid of their elder associates. Even 

 upon the assumed hypothesis that the old bees, " which have 

 consumed honey all the winter, die after their first flight in 

 spring," I would not wish to discard them if I could, for I 

 reckon their presence of the utmost value to the colony during 

 the rigour of winter, as well as the commencement of breeding 

 in spring. But is it a fact that all the old bees die during the 

 first flight in spring, as Hosmer supposes ? Certainly not. 

 Pray what bees are these that are called "old bees?" Are 

 they what your experienced correspondent " B. & AV.," inad- 

 vertently perhaps, terms " summer-bred bees," and which he, 

 too, I am sorry to see, thinks it desirable to get rid of before 

 wintering ? I venture to say there are, as a rule, few or no 

 " summer-bred " bees in any of our hives in winter. All have 

 perished, and our stocks are almost, if not entirely, peopled 

 by autumn-reared bees. Such being the case, I thmk that 

 Hosmer's theory is erroneous in principle and entirely delusive 

 — independently, too, of the error of holding the older bees in a 

 hive as worthless, the practice of weakening his strong stocks in 



autumn by division, for the assumed advantage of a few 

 pounds saved in stores, is one which will never be followed bv 

 experienced apiarians, as it is alike irreconcileable with the 

 known winter habits of the bee, as it is opposed to all sound 

 and enUghtened management. — J. Lowe. 



ABE ARTIFICIAL QUEENS INFERIOR TO 

 NATURAL QUEENS? 



Mr. J. M. Pbice, writing in the American " Bee Journal," 

 asserts that he has proved, beyond doubt, that queens raised 

 artificially are worthless in comparison with those raised 

 naturally. From my own experience I am led to differ from 

 him most decidedly. Out of twenty-five stocks, the largest 

 number of colonies I ever possessed at one time, I had not a 

 single queen that was not either artificially raised in a small 

 nucleus box, or was not the descendant of one who was so 

 raised, but I could never discover that my queens were deficient 

 in breeding powers, or, barring accidents, in longevity. In 

 fact, the fecundity of some of these was frequently a subject 

 of surprise and remark. One queen, in particular, seems to 

 stand pre-eminent in these respects. 



Soon after the first introduction of Ligurian queens into 

 this country, my own double venture having proved unpro- 

 pitious, my friend, the late Mr. Woodbury, gave me a royal 

 ceU, which he cut out of a small nucleus box, from brood of 

 his best yellow queen. This cell I, inserted in a brood-comb in 

 a nucleus box with a few adult bees. In a few days she was 

 hatched out, and I was struck with her size and beautiful 

 colour. Soon after she had commenced breeding I transferred 

 them into an eight-frame Langstroth box, and gave the bees 

 another sealed brood-comb. The stock was not particularly 

 strong at the close of the autrmin, and barely managed to 

 hold its own through the winter ; but by the end of April it 

 had become so populous as to present the appearance of being 

 ready even then to send off a swarm. A large super was given 

 to the bees, into which they at once ascended, and were so 

 crowded as to make it seem almost impossible for them to 

 work at comb-building. In about three weeks from that time, 

 considerable progress having been made in that respect, and 

 the bees again crowding outside the entrance, a second super 

 was slipped in between the first and the honey-board of the 

 stock box, which also became at once crammed with bees. 

 Early in July I removed the doubled super, containing 54 lbs. 

 of honeycomb. 



The following year this stock also distinguished itself in 

 spring and early summer by the possession of a teeming 

 population, and gave a splendid glass box super of 75 lbs. 

 weight. The next season seemed equally propitious ; a super 

 of 50 lbs. was taken, and an inunense swarm thrown off, which 

 also the same summer gave me a super of 26 lbs. weight. The 

 following spring I examined the queen which had come off 

 with this swarm, and was convinced in my own mind, from her 

 peculiar markings and appearance, that she was the same 

 queen which had been raised in the nucleus box. That season 

 this swarm became excessively crowded, and I put on a larger 

 super than I had ever before used, and it contained when full 

 the large quantity of 86 lbs. of the finest possible honey- 

 comb. 



The following spring the old queen showed symptoms of 

 having become almost worn-out, and was, I believe, soon after- 

 wards superseded by the bees, as I discovered a queen of a 

 very different character at my next inspection of the interior. 

 At the time of the old queen's death she must have been 

 at least four years and a half of age. 



I mention but this one instance out of many which have 

 come before my notice, but it is quite sufficient, in my mind, 

 to establish the truth of the assertion, that artificial queens 

 may and do prove equal in every respect to the best of those 

 raised by the bees for the purposes of natural swarming. — 

 S. Sevan Fox. 



Shading in Winter. — Mr. Taylor says : — " Where the hives 

 stand singly, I have always seen the advantages of fixing before 

 each a wooden screen, nailed to a post sunk in the ground, 

 and large enough to throw the whole front into shade. This 

 does not interfere with the eoming-forth of the bees at a pro- 

 per temperature, and it supersedes the necessity of shutting 

 them up when snow is on the ground. The screen should be 

 fixed a foot or two in advance, and so as to intercept the sun's 

 rays, which will be chiefly in winter towards the west side." 



