Octolwr 80, 1873. J 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



345 



when in the possession of their new owner. Mr. Troake says 

 this is purely artificial. Are improvements artificial, whether 

 in animals, birds, or even plants, produced by a judicious selec- 

 tion in breeding, and crossing, anifci'ding ' Mr. Troake says 

 again, it becomes merely a matter of process for colouring, and 

 that a bird coloured by hand would be equally valuable, itc, 

 the difference is simply the means employed. Of course that is 

 the difference. If I want to breed a fox-terrier with black-and- 

 tan head I do not take a white-headed dog and paint him, but 

 I put two and two together and consider, and then one and one 

 together, and try to breed what I want. I have given up the 

 fancy altogether now; the infiuxof 6oH(i.?z(?t' painters and stainers 

 disgusted me, but I still have the interest of the fancy at heart, 

 and hope Mr. Orme may long be to the front with his birds 

 artificially coloured by good management. — Caveat Emptor. 



I AM anxious that your readers should have every opportunity 

 of judging who is right, so allow me to ask. What sort of a hen 

 did Mr. Troake breed with ? He speaks of my birds ; let it Ije 

 clearly understood that he only purchased one. It is of the 

 utmost importance that the hen should be highly bred. Again 

 I say that none but the best blood will acquire the high colour 

 so universally admired, and which is only produced upon them 

 by my method of feeding. Mr. Troake's remark that it is im- 

 material whether the colour be obtained by feeding or painting, 

 is really laughable. The idea is certainly a novel one. In plain 

 English, he deems it equally dishonest to paint Canaries and to 

 feed them so as to obtain a high colour. With the former view 

 I fully agree, though some of Mr. Troake's Cheltenham friends 

 did not think so ; but I mast fully and peremptorily dissent 

 from the opinion that feeding for colour is dishonest. 



My method is simply " art assisting nature," the true plumage 

 of the Canary having been quite unknown till now. This wiU 

 and most be acknowledged by all fanciers soon. Time is my 

 best ally, and I can afford to wait. The Norwich Show of the 

 last week giving me twenty-four prizes and a silver cup after a 

 professional analyst had certified to the genuineness of my birds, 

 is another milestone in the march of success. — E. Bemkose. 



"WHAT IS HONEY? 



Is the last number of this Journal "B. & W." asks this 

 question. My answer is that honey proper is not found in 

 flowers; that the sweet juice found there is collected by bees, 

 and afterwards converted by them into honey proper^market- 

 able and presentable. He asks for evidence, and says that *' the 

 honey collected from the bean flowers proves nothing, save that 

 it was thin." My contention is that, inasmuch as it had not 

 been re-swallowed by bees, it was not honey proper. Neither 

 is cream butter, though butter is made of cream or comes from 

 it. What evidence have you that cream is not butter ? The 

 evidence of the senses. For more than fifty years we have been 

 seeing, handling, and tasting both cream and butter. They are 

 different articles. In the same sense have we for more than 

 fifty years been seeing, handhng, and tasting honey from the 

 plant, and honey from the bee. They are different articles. 

 Will "B. & W." put the matter to the test next summer? If 

 he does, he will hnd that as cream undergoes a change in the 

 charn, honey undergoes a change in the bodies of bees. 



For the sake of others who may wish to see for themselves let 

 me snggest a very simple experiment. Some warm summer 

 morning put a strong swarm into a hive — full or half full of 

 empty combs — say, at 7 o'clock a.m. Weigh hive and bees before 

 the latter begin to work. This swarm Nvill probably collect 5 lbs. 

 of crude honey the same day before 7 o'clock p.5t. Remove the 

 bees into anotner hive, and extract the honey. It will be found 

 crude still, and as unlike honey as cream is unlike butter. No 

 process or amount of evaporation will remove its crudeness. It 

 will mould ; it will become sour. I have never seen it crystal- 

 lise like proper honey. 



If this be not conclusive evidence, put another swarm into 

 another hive with empty combs. It may collect the same weight 

 of crude honey in the same space of time ; but let it remain in 

 the hive, and if the bees be prevented from gathering more by 

 rnin or artificial means for thirty-six hours, all the crude stuff 

 will be changed into honey proper, and stored away on the out- 

 sides of the combs. When bees come home from the fields tliey 

 empty their sacs in the first empty cells they can find, and go 

 back to the fields for more; hence, on lifting and examining a 

 hive at the close of a hard day's work, we find the clear, limpid, 

 but crude fluid gathered that day amongst the brood combs ; 

 there, for couvenience, to be re-swallowed, and stored away at 

 night. 



One word of correction, for " B. it W." has quite unintention- 

 ally made it appear that I pitied his ignorance. I simply said 

 it was strange he did not know these things, and in the last 

 sentence of his letter of last week he says, " To allow that bees 

 have a power of sweetening honey from some source of sweetness 

 within themselves I cannot believe." " A source of sweetness 

 within themselves " ia a new idea altogether to me, and has not 



come out of anything written or spoken by me. There is no 

 " source of sweetness " inherent in a bee ; neither is there a 

 source of butter inherent in a churn. If " B. & W." will not 

 put the matter in question to the test in his own way, perhaps 

 he will accept next summer a jar of crude honey, and one of 

 perfect honey, collected from the same flowers by the bees of — 

 A. Pettigkew. 



THE ART OF SUPEEING.— No. 2. 



In placing and fixing empty drone combs in supers before the 

 bees enter them, the bee-master should not forget that there is 

 a right and a wrong way of doing this. The more closely we 

 imitate nature the more likely are we to succeed. All honey 

 cells dip to their bottom : they are not horizontal. As comba 

 are found and cut out of hives they should be placed in the 

 supers. If they are turned bottom upwards, the cells wiU slope 

 the wrong way and be much more difficult to fill. Such an 

 operation would indicate great carelessness or want of skill ou 

 the part of the bee-surgeon. 



Well then, let the combs be properly placed and partially 

 fixed in the supers which the bees have to fill with honey. 

 What is meant by fixing them ? From my remarks of last 

 week the reader learned that we filled shallow boxes with cakes 

 of white empty combs, which the bees soon afterwards filled 

 with honey. In doing this we begin at one side of the box, 

 and, of course, finish at the other side. The combs are kept 

 apart from one another by little bits of wax or wood — two or 

 three between every two combs. The lids are then put on the 

 boxes, and these are placed on full hives. The bees fix the 

 combs more securely and begin to fill them. As soon as they 

 are full they are taken off and other empty ones put in their 

 places. 



I shall now come to glass supers, which are rather more 

 difficult to manage, but the work of filling them or having them 

 tilled is within the reach and compass of bee-keepers not very 

 far advanced. To believe in our own ability to do a thing puts 

 us on the high road to success. Let me here strongly condemn 

 the common bee or bell-glasses which are sold for supering. 

 Where could we find anything so unsuitable and inconvenient 

 for the purpose of supering as these common bee-glasses ? If any- 

 one were to assert that not one out of ten used is filled I would 

 believe the assertion. In bee-gardens lots of them are met 

 with that were never filled since they were made. Even when 

 fiUed it is no pleasant task to cut the comb out of them. We 

 use and recommend glass supers with lids, which are better 

 in every way and more convenient for the bee-master. Mr. 

 Samuel Tates, of Old Millgate, Manchester, supplies me with 

 this superior kind of supers. In his catalogue of bee-furniture 

 he calls these lidded glasses by my name, simply because I was 

 the first to introduce and use them in England ; but in Scotland 

 they had been used before they were employed here. They 

 are not only better but far more ornamental than the common 

 sort. Being in two parts they are, of course, more costly. 



The reader will at once see how easy 

 it will be to help the bees to fill this 

 super. When a hive is ready for super- 

 ing one of these empty glasses is placed 

 on it. Then we take the lid off and place 

 at once some pieces of empty drone comb 

 on the crown of the hive inside the glass, 

 and hold them erect and in proper posi- 

 tion by wedges or little bits of comb. 

 The lid is put on and the super is well 

 and warmly covered with cotton wool or 

 woollen cloths. In less than twenty-four 

 hours the bees have adopted andfastened 

 more securely the combs thus put in. 

 " Whj', these combs are Cinches high to 

 begin with, and the bees are building 

 them upwards! " Lot them go on for 

 another twenty-four hours, or till a rough 

 wooden lid be prepared with some more white combs artificially 

 sealed to it, three or four nice large pieces. When this is done 

 the glass lid should be removed and the wooden one with combs 

 depending put in its place. Thus the bees havo combs from both 

 top and bottom to unite and fill, and, when weather permits, they 

 do it with marvellous dexterity and rapidity. Wlien the super is 

 filled the most expert and suspicious apiarian or dealer in honey 

 could not detect a flaw in it. Supers of this kind are perfect 

 in eveiy sense, and cannot be surpassed for excellence by those 

 which are fiUed by bees managed ou the jog-trot system. 



" I quite understand all you have said, and can now see how 

 easy it wiU be to fiU our shelves with supers of honeycomb in 

 fine seasons ; but one thing is not clear to me— viz., these supers 

 have wide parts or bellies, and the combs as they are built up 

 and down will be in the middle of the supers opposite these 

 wider parts; how do the bees fill them?" I am glad the 

 reader asks this question, for my answer, I hope, will raise him 

 to the top of the class iii this art of supering. Well, before I 



Pettigrew'a Glass Sux)cr. 



