60 



JOURNAL OP HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE UABDENEK. 



[ July 21, 1S63. 



altogether and invest her with the title of " king," or they 

 provide her with a pi-ince consort and gravely declare that 

 " there is a king and a queen in every hive." Added to this 

 I may state my conviction that, although there is un- 

 doubtedly an immense variation in the breeding powers of 

 queen bees, and that in this all-important point the Liguriaus 

 possess a great and unquestionable superiority ; yet, as a 

 rule, the fall breeding powers of even a common queen are 

 seldom tested to the utmost, and under favoxu-able cir- 

 cumstances nearly every queen I have met with has proved 

 herself equal to the occasion and fuUy competent to sustain 

 the population of a flourishing colony. I, therefore, take 

 this opportunity of recording my belief that when stocks 

 dwindle away it is seldom through a lack of reproductive 

 power in the queen herself, but rather owing to this power 

 lying dormant through being thwarted in some way by 

 adverse circumstances. 



, WMl.st cudgelling my brains to little purpose in the vain 

 .attempt to give a satisfactory i-eply to the query propounded 

 to me, I little thought how soon Mr. Fan-brother's case 

 would become my own, and that finding myself faii-ly con- 

 fronted by the same difficulty, I must either solve the 

 problem or bid atlieu to prosperous bee-keeping. Such has, 

 however, been the case this season, which has been to me 

 one of continued worry, vexation, and disappointment, both 

 English and Italian bees having been equally at fault. Had 

 I not already thoroughly tested the good qualities of my 

 Ligiu-ians, I might probably have pronounced them worth- 

 less, and had I met with such ill-success on their first in- 

 .troduction, I would scarcely have troubled myself about 

 natiu-aUsing them. Thus, then, the matter stands. Although 

 all possessed of young queens, many of them sprung from 

 a race proved to be far superior to the ordinary species, my 

 hives have gone from bad to worse, untU some with the 

 purest and most valuable queens have threatened to become 

 altogether extinct, and none approached to anything like 

 the prosperity which they have hitherto attained in far less 

 favom-able seasons. All my endeavours to restore weak 

 stocks by the hitherto-unfailing process — exchanging brood- 

 combs with more populous ones, tui'ned out of no avail, 

 whilst I continued to receive the most deplorable accounts 

 of the few colonies I had been induced to part with. Eepeated 

 examinations of the interior of my hives led only to the 

 same conclusion, that the queens were in no case in fault, 

 but that comparatively few of the eggs laid by them de- 

 veloped into bees. Setting this down to the account of the 

 cold nights we at that time experienced, it may readily be 

 imagined how I longed for warm, nay, for very hot weather, 

 when no low temperatiu-e could exist even in the most 

 thinly-populated hive to interfere with the development of 

 the young larvae. 



Thus passed the spring months, until at length in May 

 • it became evident that the bees themselves were incompe- 

 tent to remedy the mischief. Many of the combs had be- 

 come mere masses of abortive brood, which the bees allowed 

 to remain untouched, apparently overpowered and paralysed 

 by the magnitude of the evil, and I was irresistibly impelled 

 to the conclusion that something must indeed be done. By 

 way of experiment I took one of the worst combs, opened 

 every sealed cell, and by repeated and continued jerks over 

 a sheet of paper succeeded in dislodging a vast quantity of a 

 dark brown sbmy matter, from which arose a most unplea- 

 sant smell. Having by this means and the use of a damp 

 flannel removed as much as possible of the offensive sub- 

 stance, I returned the comb to the hive, and awaited with 

 anxiety the result of my experiment. Before very long the 

 bees set to work, and having apparently piu-ified the comb, 

 the queen next entered upon the scene, and soon filled it 

 with eggs in the most methodical manner. This, then, 

 thought I, is the right course to pxirsue. My little labourers 

 are evidently appalled at the magnitude of the task, and if 

 I only lend them a helping hand they will do the rest them- 

 selves. I at once set to work : comb after comb was, at the 

 cost of infinite labour, cleared and replaced ; and I looked 

 forward with confidence to the time when the development of 

 what I thought must now be healthy brood would replenish 

 nay depopulated hives, and enable me once more to rejoice in 

 the possession of a flom-ishing apiary. In this, however, I 

 was grievously disappointed. It soon became evident that 

 the bees hatched were even fewer than before, and that at 



the cost of so much time and trouble I had only given an 

 impetus to and actually accelerated the downward progress 

 of my apiary ! 



Diu-ing all this I had from time to time made a few spas- 

 modic attempts at queen-rearing ; but such was the weak 

 state of my colonies, that it was with difliculty any of them 

 coidd spare a few bees to stock even a small nucleus ; and 

 of the royal cells that were formed, so great a number turned 

 out abortive that June was ended before I had raised more 

 than a single queen. 



When June was neai-ly at a close, and I found myself in 

 the same dilemma, I was faii-ly at my wits' end. I thought 

 of Mr. Edward Faii'brother, and, like him, confessed myself 

 fairly beaten. Never had I met with such a case, or even 

 anything approaching to it ; neither could my apiarian friends 

 assist me by suggesting a remedy for what was to them 

 altogether unprecedented. AH their bees were in the most 

 flourishing condition ; and one in particuliu' fairly told me 

 that he believed he had more bees in one of his Liguriajl 

 stocks than I had in my entire apiary. Can it, therefore, 

 be wondered at that, in the bitterness of my heart at this 

 humiliating contrast, I was almost tempted to wish that I 

 had never become — A Devonshieb Bee-keepeb ? 



DRIVING BEES. 



I OESEKVE in youi- No. 118, that "A. B. C." has been un- 

 successful in driving and transposing. I will, therefore, give 

 him a little of the practice I have had. Last year I drove 

 three hives. One proved successful, but the other two did 

 not; and the next day I was rather astonished at seeing the 

 three hives fraternise, the bees going from one to another. 

 One of them, it tm-ned out, had no queen, and, consequently, 

 it was robbed, and the bees joined the robbers. 



Driving does not always succeed, as sometimes the bees 

 will not go out at all, and I find natural swarming is better 

 than artificial ; but you may save time and trouble in 

 watching by diiving. One of my last year's Ligurian 

 queens not breeding good bees, I put on a drone-stopper, 

 and it appears to have prevented her from swarming, as the 

 bees have come out once or twice, and lately have been 

 hanging out; but last Friday (July 10th), I observed many 

 of them going to the next hive, and no fighting going on. I 

 have, therefore, transferred this liive, and have added a 

 large quantity of bees to a young Liguiian queen. I find 

 bees join better, and with less fighting at the latter end 

 of the season than now. The other day I had a very fine 

 Ligm-ian queen come off, makiiig the third swarm ; and as 

 there was not enough of bees for this time of the year, I tmni- 

 g; ted one of the hives that I suspected to have no queen, 

 as there were so few bees going in and out ; but I foimd the 

 queen and destroyed her, as she was evidently no breeder, 

 and then put the swai-m into the hive with comb, and joined 

 the bees together. On the next morning I observed a small 

 cluster of bees under the alighting-board, and on looking 

 into them saw the queen, and got her into the hive. She 

 very soon came out again, and I therefore put her with the 

 few bees that followed her into an empty hive, and on going 

 home the next evening was told I had another swarm, but 

 on examination found the hive empty, and also the other 

 hive, showing that the queen and the few bees had left the 

 hive again. I did not find her that evening, but succeeded 

 in doing so early the next morning in the place where she 

 had alighted on the day before, and, therefore, I hived her 

 again, but at night found she had gone, and have not been 

 able to find her since. I fancy the bees would not have her 

 because she would not be impregnated. 



Can any of yoxxr apiarian correspondents inform me how 

 many days piping may be heard before swarming, as I have 

 a swarm that has been piping for these four days ? The 

 people here say it says "out," meaning the old queen has 

 gone. — A. "W. 



OUR LETTEE BOX. 



Largest Brood op Dokkings (Jf. P.).— The most numerous we erer 

 knew comprieed seventeen chickens. The hen had sat herself in the thatch 

 of an outbuildint; covered dens-elj- with ivy. 



