138 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTTJEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



[ August la, ises. 



amioant of patience is required to keep tapping for fifteen 

 or twenty minutes, and this period, though not always suffi- 

 cient, will often be so. 



It is to be regi-etted that "Jonas Jackson" has not 

 told us more in detail what steps are necessary to secure 

 the co-operation of our bees. In what language are we to 

 address them ? Their own ? I for one understand it not. 

 Will plain English do ? May the German or Frenchman 

 speak to them in his own idiom ? If so, bees are pretty 

 good linguists. Suppose I want to make my Ligurians "a 

 speech," who will translate it for me ? Their nationality has 

 been disputed, and if it were settled I should be no better 

 off, for I understand neither Swiss nor Italian. It is true 

 that the horse and the dog understand certain words and 

 phrases ; but much care is bestowed on their early training 

 to make them know that certain sounds convey certain 

 ideas ; and I do not clearly see that a simOar course is at 

 all practicable with bees. Virgil and the rest of antiquity 

 may be excused for their inaccuracy as naturalists, but just 

 fancy a nineteenth-century man 



- heir of a]] the ages 



In the foreinosl runks of tiiui 

 mounted on a stump in his garden, gravely haranguing the 

 bees about his domestic felicities or calamities ! — John P. 

 Edwards, Shirleywick, near Stafford. 



WOODEN HIVES. 



The materials of which hives are made, as well as their 

 construction, have an imjjortant influence over the quantity 

 and quaUty of honey, and in facilitating the working of ex- 

 periments. 



Now, wood and straw are the most common hive-mate- 

 rials in this country, and the only kinds I ever used for 

 general purposes ; and I do not intend to raise an argu- 

 ment for the one, nor objections to the other, but simply 

 to state the experience 1 have had of both, but without 

 speaking of their construction. 



When I first adopted wooden hives, it was from not being 

 able to obtain a sufficient quantity of a peculiar make of 

 straw hives which I had ordered. The first winter I had 

 them I had an equal number — viz., five of each, and I met with 

 every discoui'agement from my neighbouring bee-keepers. 

 Every one had a diti'erent reason to demonstrate that I 

 would not have bees long ; but not one of the objectors 

 could explain to me the cause that would destroy the bees. 

 So I was left alone in my undertaking. 



I was not ignorant about the natui-e of wood, and I took 

 care that no external damp whatever, unless that of the 

 atmosphere, could touch the hives. 



The alighting-board I made moveable, with a space be- 

 tween the hive and it, so that the rain could not get near 

 the hive. I set the hives all in one dii'ectiou and equally 

 well protected, so that they would have a fair chance for 

 proving which should do best. 



It is a singular fact that I have never had a single death 

 of a swarm from disease or other cause in my wooden hives ; 

 but it was very different with the straw hives — I lost every 

 one of them in about eighteen months. The reason of this 

 was abortive brood. The cause of the abortive brood I 

 attribute to the straw hives being a little wai-mer than the 

 wooden hives, and the very changeable weather here in 

 spring : consequently, when a few warm days occur, where 

 the queen is prolific, she spreads her brood more than the 

 bees are able to attend to if the weather tiu:ns colder, as it 

 often does. When this takes place the loss of the hive is 

 certain, unless some of the combs are removed — not only 

 those that are affected but also those adjoining, till no more 

 are left than the bees are able to cover. This restricts them 

 from breeding more than they are able to attend to, until 

 the weather becomes warmer and encoui'ages their forward- 

 ness, when they continue to do well. 



This removing of combs I have done often and have never 

 failed. I also make it a rule once or twice a-week to smeU 

 my hives to know whether they are free from foul brood, 

 which is easily detected by the strong effluvia, but I have 

 never been troubled with it in my wooden hives. Some 

 people make it a rule to cut out only those portions that have 

 foul brood in them ; but this will not be effectual, because 



there is always scattered brood which is not easily seen, 

 so that the bees are kept scattered and are never able to 

 keep up a uniform degree of heat. Nay, it is better to 

 turn the bees out of the hive altogether, substituting a new 

 and clean hive, because it is doubtful if ever they thrive in 

 a hive that has been once tliseased. The infection seems to 

 adhere to the hive, so that it may be termed the " bee 

 plague." 



I wovdd recommend as better than an empty hive — seeing 

 that it is mostly in spring that this malady rages — a hive 

 with clean combs; but if this cannot be obtained, as bees 

 will not thrive if deprived of combs in spring, I recom- 

 mend as an excellent substitute the new wax sheets, which 

 can be had at a trifling expense, and which would enable 

 the bees to go to work at once, and by a little feeding they 

 would soon do well. — A Lanabkshike Bee-keepeb. 



WEAK AND UNHEALTHY HIVES— FOUL 

 BROOD. 



Since the date of my last commimieation, which appeared 

 in the Number of the 4th August, and which took notico 

 only of Mr. Woodbury's first ai-ticle on " A Dwindling 

 Apiary " in the Number of July 21st, we have been favoured 

 with two or three additional contributions by him on the 

 same subject, explaining the nature of the evils by which 

 his apiary has been well-nigh ruined, the means by which 

 these evils were brought about, and the remedies employed 

 to extirpate them. 



I shall make a few remarks on these three points. Mr. 

 Woodbury, in reply to '• B. B." in last Number, describes 

 foul brood to bo " a disease which attacks the young larvffi 

 in their various stages of development. At first only a 

 few die, but as these putrefy in their cells the infection 

 spreads until very few bees arrive at maturity, and the stock 

 dwindles and idtimately perishes." 



Now I have no desii'e to find faidt with Mr. Woodbury for 

 so describing this evil. He is following in the footsteps of 

 not a few apiarian writers in so doing, and besides, it is a 

 subject of which, as he himself says, he has hitherto had 

 little or no practical acquaintance. But in this, as in a. 

 gi'eat many other matters, writers are apt to pei"petuate 

 errors by accepting for truths the mere dicta of others 

 without due reflection and consideration. If foul brood be 

 a disease, I should like to know by what it is caused. Ai-o 

 the ova as deposited by the queen tainted with the germ of 

 some mahgnant epidemic, or is the malady induced by the 

 niursing of infected adult bees ? How does it originate ? 

 I know of no writer who has, in my estimation, satisfactorily 

 accounted for the presence of foul brood in a hive on the 

 supposition of its being a disease. Mere surmises and con- 

 jectures we have in abundance, but nothing more ; and the 

 so-called malady is in its origin and character left com- 

 pletely in dwbio. Mr. Woodbury promises a digest of the 

 views of some of the more reliable American and German 

 authorities on the subject ; but while I shall always be glad 

 to peruse any article from the pen of so accompUshed and 

 able an apiarian writer as Mr. Woodbury, yet I know of no 

 subject treated on, both by ancient and some modem writers, 

 so full of errors as that of the diseases of bees. My general 

 practice, indeed, in reading any work on the bee, is to pass 

 over with a mere cursory glance the chapter so designated. 

 The fact is, the ailments of bees are few and simple, and 

 such as are induced by famine and filth, by confinement and 

 spurious and insufficient food. I am not disposed, therefore, 

 to view the presence of foul brood in a hive as a disease, 

 properly so-called, at all. If I am right in accounting for its 

 origin, it can no more bo called a disease than if we were to 

 snatch the unhatehed eggs from a domestic fowl during the 

 period of incubation, expose them to the chill of a frosty 

 night, and then ascribe the death and consequent decay of 

 the embryo chicks to a natural disease produced by some 

 unaccountable cause. If it is to be termed a disease at all, 

 lit it be described as Mr. H. Taylor described it in last 

 Number — an entu-ely " artificial one." Abortive brood, 

 however, properly speaking, can never be classed under the 

 category of bee maladies. 



Let me here anticipate any objections which may be urged 

 to the evils in question being produced only artificially. In 



