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JOURNAL OF HOE.TICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAUDENER. 



[ October 20, 18G3. 



I have noticed in several seasons the wild bees (the Bombi), 

 of various sorts have been much more eager after honeydew 

 than the hive bees, particiolai-ly that on the young oak and 

 beech trees. — H. W. Newman, Hillside. 



LIGHT-COLOURED POLLEiS". 



FoK the past fortnight and more I have been surprised at 

 the great activity amongst all my stocks. Every day when 

 the temperature of the air permitted them to leave tlie 

 hives, they have, especially in the early morning, worked 

 on something, but what I am not able to guess. They retui-n 

 to their hives literally covered with a very fine white powder, 

 just as if they had been roUed in dark flour. They can-y in 

 at the same time pellets of farina of a dii-ty white. At first 

 I thought they visited some flour-mill or baker's shop. I 

 opened several, and was sm-prised to find the honey-bag 

 contained a bright transparent fluid of a very high flavour. 

 I know of no flower of any sort in bloom within a mile of 

 my house, except some poor beds of Mignonette, which 

 they now pass by ; besides, the pollen of Mignonette is of 

 a bright red colour. They fly in the du-ection of some 

 chalk pits more than a mile away, where I have fi-om a dis- 

 tance observed some yellow flowers in bloom. I shall be 

 exceedingly glad to be infonned &om what this honey and 

 farina is collected. — E. Fairbrotheb. 



[Our own bees likewise return dusted with white powder, 

 and carrying loads of light-coloured pollen. We believe 

 that this is the result of their labours among the great 

 numbers of fuchsias now in bloom, from which also some 

 honey is collected.] 



AN EXPEEIMEKTAL APIAEY. 



In a former ai-ticle I said that " an experimental apiary 

 can never be a thoroughly prosperous one." In enunciating 

 this truism, I fear that some of your correspondents have 

 misunderstood the object I had in view in making this 

 statement, as weU as misapprehended and misapplied its 

 meaning. I had no wish to condemn legitimate experiment, 

 far less to put a stumbling-block in the way of science. Ex- 

 periment, I know, is often the torch which lights up the 

 dark recesses of the unexplored world, discovers and reveals 

 to us its liidden arcana, and dissipates and dispels the mist 

 and gloom of a thousand years. Experiment is at once the 

 discoverer and the test of truth; it is the key which unlocks 

 to us many a treasure in the vast storehouse of creation, 

 and opens up to us a solution of many a qu<eslio vexata, 

 many a knotty problem. But experiment must not be con- 

 founded with science, nor en-or with truth. Experiment 

 from the very natiu-e of the case may be misapplied and faU 

 in its objects and ends, and its success will always be com- 

 mensurate with the knowledge which guides and directs it. 

 A scientific apiarian and an experimental one, therefore, are 

 not synonymous. 



Do I blame Mr. Woodbury merely because he is an ex- 

 perimentalist ? No. If I did I should be condemning myself, 

 who, to attain certain ends and test certain theories, have 

 often done violence to the principles of good management, 

 and come kno^ongly into collision with the findings of 

 scientific experience. So long as mystery remains a part of 

 the natural history of the bee, experiment must be resorted 

 to for the pui-pose of solving it. The means employed may 

 not always be scientific or in accordance with natui'e, nor 

 may they be promotive of the good and prosperity of the 

 bje community; but as soon as our knowledge is complete 

 then only shall we cease fi'om exjjeriment, and conduct oui- 

 apiaries strictly upon scientific principles. But in the mean- 

 time it behoves us, more especially in the ordinary practical 

 work of the apiai'y (and this is what I am at), to walk 

 according to the most approved rules which experience and 

 ascertained facts wai-rant. The more we do this we shall find 

 oiu- success the greater, om' pleasure and profit the larger. 

 Knowledge here, as in everything else, is power^it is the 

 philosopher's stone, the true alchemy that turns everything 

 it touches into gold, or, at all events, into its equivalent. 



But after aU is there such a difTerence between a merely 

 experimental apiarian and a strictly scientific one ? Let us 

 see. Let me relate a few of the experimentalists' doings, 



which may amuse, perhaps, what are called the old-fasliioned 

 apiarians, and cause some of the would-be modern class, who 

 pm-sue with hot haste everj' phantom of novelty which 

 crosses theii- path, to pause and ponder in their erratic ways. 

 But where shall I begin ? The field is so full of materials 

 as to encumber my movements. I can only attempt to 

 traverse a portion of it at present. 



First as to domiciles. The experimentalist must try all 

 sizes, from the giant tub of Duchatel, down to the puniest 

 vessel whioh bees can be crammed into. He must also try 

 all materials — straw, wood, glass, cork, earthenware, rushes, 

 and sea-giass. All forms and shapes, too — the square, the 

 oblong, the circular, the hexagonal, octagonal, pyramidal, 

 triangular, and globular, the high and the low, the conical- 

 topped, and the flat-topped, a unicomb, and a decemcomb, a 

 hive crossed with sticks, and without sticks, a frame-hive, 

 a bar-hive, a vertical frame, a horizontal frame, and a leaf- 

 hive, a hive 6 feet high, and one G inches. In short, he 

 must try all kinds of materials, all forms, shapes, and sizes. 

 Then, having got his bees domiciled acoonling to his fancy — 

 say in autumn, he tries to find out what kind of food is best 

 to feed them with. Soft sugar, lump-sugar, candy-sugar, 

 boiled, half-boiled, raw, foreign honey, home honey variously 

 mixed and compounded ; but a favourite dose may be thus 

 stated — honey so much, sugar and ale so much, brandy, 

 sherry, or rum so much, mth a modicum of salt, and, perhaps, 

 a little treacle added to give the whole more " consistency." 



Having discovered that his bees are afllicted with dysentery 

 in the spring (no wonder often), he must again have recourse 

 to the bottle, and administers a glass of gin, diluted of 

 com-se. But perchance he has heard something of" burying 

 alive," and to save himself the trouble of feeding and his 

 bees of eating, he digs a hole in his garden at dusk, and 

 there and then he systematically buiies his hives alive, care- 

 fully covering them over with leaves, earth, Ac, and there 

 they are left to their fate ; but no reviving spring returns to 

 awaken the poor bees fi-om theii' deep slumbers. Or perhaps 

 he has read somewhere something of the effects of position 

 and aspect and internal moisture, and having faUed in the 

 bowels of the earth he tries the regions above — he tries an 

 altitude of 15 or 30 feet, where he thinks no damp can 

 approach them, and there they are left as an experiment tiU 

 they are thoroughly winnowed. But the experimentalist is 

 ever changeable as the winds that blow, and fearful of the 

 evil influences of cold -n-inds he tries aU sorts of aspects — 

 east, west, north, south ; but as tliis would not suit the ever- 

 vaa-ying cm-rent of our winds, the revolving pedestal will 

 best meet his views, and hence, like a weathercock, the 

 floorboard will always point leeward. By this method the 

 bees will be afforded some amusement, to say the least of it, 

 in finding out then- dooi-way, and the virgin queen, if they 

 ever become possessed of one, some reason when she ven- 

 tiu-es forth for going astray. Having heard something too of 

 the disastrous consequences of hives being exposed to the 

 bright rays of the sun in winter, and that they eat less 

 honey and lose fewer bees by being sited on the north side 

 of a waO where they axe in perpetual shade, he tries the 

 expei-iment, and the residt is duly chi-onicled, of course ; but 

 in this as in many things else, observation is often fallacious, 

 " Experieiitia fallm." Then comes the spring, and he disovers 

 that some of his hives exhibit signs of weakness, while 

 others are more active and healthy. With the view of 

 equalising their strength he tries the effect of transposition 

 of sites. This, he is informed, is a capital expedient, and 

 alwaj'S attended with the best residts. Well, the issue will 

 show, though not always to the experimentalist. Having 

 some frame-hives, it may be, he is constantly in the habit of 

 drawing up the frames for inspection, and he is surprised to 

 flnd that the queen disappears some morning, or is found a 

 stiffened corpse before the hive. How marvellous ! Some 

 of the Germans call this a case of regicide, I believe. 



But now comes the swarming season — No, not the swarm- 

 ing season ; I should rather say the driving season. " Ai-ti- 

 ficial swarming for me," says the experimentalist ; " I 

 coidd not be bothered with natural swai-ming, it is too old- 

 fashioned — Natvu-e must be helped." " Artificial swarming 

 is to be preferred to natural swarming," say the Potsdam 

 conclave of apiarians, and the sentiment is echoed by many 

 an Englishman. The spirit of the times is for speed — it 

 cannot brook delay. The old slowcoach system will not do 



