October 20, 1863. ] 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



323 



now. No : we must transpoi-t oiu- bodies by the speed of 

 the railway, and om- thoughts by a flash of electricity. The 

 question with the experimental apiarian is not, "Ai'e my 

 bees really to swarm y" but " Am I ready to force a swarm ? 

 Nature is tardy — she must be incited to action — she must 

 be helped. I care nothing for natural swarming : twenty 

 minutes' di-umming is more pleasant to my ears than the 

 aerial music of a rushing swarm." Is it really so ? Can I 

 believe it to be so ? Speak out, ye lovers of natui'e — ye 

 who profess to feast your eyes with delight on the beautiful 

 landscape, whose varied chai'ms the ai'tist's pencil can but 

 faintly poui-tray, and say if artificial swarming can ever 

 compare for a moment in this respect with natural swarm- 

 ing. I need not " pause for a reply;" I know yoiu- verdict. 

 Deprive the apiary of natiu-al swarming, and you deprive 

 the true apiarian of his principal delight. Take away from 

 it this exciting pleasure, and the mystical spell which has 

 so often charmed the lovers of the bee in all ages is broken, 

 and our minds wiU be brought down from the bright regions 

 of poetry and expectancy to the mere commonplace con- 

 siderations of ijrofit and pelf. 



But I must away back again to the enigmatical and the 

 experimentalist. Eeady, or not ready, he drives his swarm, 

 and a swarm he assiu-edly gets, and his successes are, of 

 course, dvdy recorded. But pray, Mr. Experimentalist, 

 what of your failui-es ? Be candid for once. Oh ! but the 

 experimentalist " does not allow of many failures." " There 

 should be no failures." Well, be it so; I do not choose 

 to lift up the veil as I might, nor must I be too inquisi- 

 tive. The driven hive is removed to a little distance aside, 

 and the new artificial swarm is put down on the old stance. 

 Splendid treatment this for the old stock, whose remaining 

 bees, I fancy, ai-e sadly thinned-out sometimes during the 

 following day or two by desertion ! But that is nothing. 

 Bees we are told will hatch, and grubs matiu'e, and eggs 

 preserve their germinating powers for several weeks in a 

 greenhouse at a temperatui'C of 50', and that the grubs may 

 there be nui'sed with our own hands till they quit their 

 cells. If these things take place in a greenhouse, why not 

 in this well-nigh deserted hive ? The experimentalist by- 

 and-by, however, discovers foul brood has been introduced 

 somehow or other into his hives, and he is told, that though 

 the old-school apiarians are genei'ally much behind the 

 present age in knowledge, yet theu- views of foul brood — 

 that it is a disease, a pestilence, which originates very much 

 like the potato disease, nobody knows how — must be received 

 as correct, and that all new theories by whomsoever broached 

 must be ignored altogether as erroneous. Moreover, that 

 it is a disease of so vu-ulent a character, as to infect brood, 

 comb, honey, bees, and domicile, and, therefore, that the 

 combs must be all consigned to the melting-pot, the honey 

 ■carefiilly kept away from other bees, the domicile itself 

 burned or laid aside for four years (would not three years 

 and a half do ?) purifying, and the bees and queen subjected 

 to a sort of penal discipline and inanity for several days, 

 until they are thoroughly pui'ged of all gross and infectious 

 matter, all which, nevertheless, may not prove effectual in 

 extirpating the malady, and then the bees must be put into 

 a healthy di-iven hive (it mattei-s not though it has been 

 deprived of its bees the day previous), and all will be well. 

 " The chilled and neglected brood in aU stages in this hive 

 will suffer little or no harm for a day or so, the actual mis- 

 chief being very tiifling. Neither the eggs, very young 

 Sbrood, nor that which is sealed over, is at all injui'ed." Say, 

 ye scientific apiarians of this the nineteenth centirry, with 

 all your experience, is it even so ? Are chilled and neglected 

 brood so removed ? Tell it not to the apiarians of Scotland, 

 who dwell in the land of the mountain and flood. Publish 

 it not in England amidst its comparatively warmer vales 

 and milder clime. Eepeat it not in the pages of The Jour- 

 nal OF Horticulture, whose fame on apiarian subjects is 

 known and appreciated from Land's End to John O'Groat's. 

 No : Decayed and abortive brood in all sta,ges are not 

 removed by the bees, and, consequently, must remain a per- 

 manent evil, in whichever hive they are unfortunately found. 



But I must draw this already-too-long paper to a close. 

 The field, as I said at the commencement, is too full of 

 material to be exhausted in a few columns ; besides I cannot 

 traverse it without trampling on peoples' toes, and tliis is 

 not agreeable. I therefore must forbear. My " tone and 



style " are already thought by some to be too severe; and it 

 appears, though I must receive contradiction, I must not be 

 given to "philippic," and to "giving pokes in the side." 

 Nor have I done so. In opposition to the old theory of foul 

 brood I have propounded my views on the subject. It is an 

 evil with which I have been long familiar, and I have not 

 found its eradication at all so formidable an affair as is 

 represented. I have found that an excision of the affected 

 parts is sufficient ; but care must be taken that it is com- 

 plete. Nay, since writing these ai'ticles I have, as an 

 experiment, totally extirpated it from a hive by thoi-oughly 

 cleansing (at a considerable tax upon my patience and time), 

 each affected cell ; while both in my own apiary and in that 

 of a friend some sixty miles distant, I have seen the evil 

 produced again and again by a few manipulations. 



Let me in conclusion assiu-e " B. & W.," whose uplifted 

 mask has revealed to me a more familiar name, and all 

 others who have entered the lists with me in this qumstio 

 vexata, that I had no other object to serve, no other motive 

 to gratify, no "other interests" at heart, but the elucida- 

 tion of truth and the maintenance of such sound principles 

 of apiculture as not a little observation and experience have 

 taught me to value, and which I have been presumptuous 

 enough to recommend to the consideration of others ; who, 

 no doubt, desii'e with myself, both on ecomonical and 

 scientific grounds, to see the natru-al history of the bee and 

 its management fi'eed from the errors and disencumbered 

 of the prejudices which have so long encompassed them. — 

 J. Lowe. 



PAETHEjN^OGEIs^ESIS-DEOiN'ES-DEIVINCT. 



The letter from Mr. Alex. Shearer, in page 283, shows 

 that your nautical cry of "no nearer" must be attended to 

 by us all. If I am an unbeliever in parthenogenesis, I am 

 one ready and willing to be convinced of the truth, and I 

 take for granted "A Devonshire Bee-keeper" wishes 

 only that the truth shovdd prevail, and would rather be 

 convicted of en-or in past opinion than continue to advance 

 any theory that will not lead on to fact. My supposition 

 with reference to the matter in question is, that eggs of 

 queens or workers — if it be established that the latter lay 

 eggs — can be rendered fertile by some other than the usual 

 method. Eggs of fishes certainly are, and why not those of 

 bees ? I have seen dronos clustering in such numbers on 

 comb that I have imagined it possible they might deposit 

 spawn in the bottom of certain cells, and hence a reason 

 why eggs of vfrgin queens placed in those cells by workers 

 might vivify. Has the microscope shoTvn any difference in 

 the eggs that produce queens, workers, or drones ? I had 

 drones hatched much earlier this year in a hive than I ever 

 saw them hatched before, and I imagine the reason was 

 clearly this — that I had during the year previous placed a 

 small piece of drone-comb as a guide in a small box at the 

 top of that hive. This small box was filled with drone- 

 comb, and I observed that di-ones were always clustering in 

 large quantities in that small box. (There were three other 

 boxes alongside this one in which the case was different.) 

 This year, being at the top of the hive, it was presently 

 filled with brood, all drones, and hatched out its young 

 much earlier than if it had been at the bottom of the hive, 

 where drone-comb is usually made. This raises a question : 

 Can the queen mother lay her eggs as she chooses ? — queens, 

 workers, or drones ; workers, drones, queens ; or drones, 

 workers, queens, &c. The number of drones in comparison 

 to the queen shows that Creative Wisdom must have had a 

 reason for the disparity, so that I may be pardoned for my 

 sui-mise that there must or may be some other way of 

 accoimting for their use than to suppose they all engage in 

 fertDising the queen. If the "Devonshire Bee-keeper" 

 would think this over and reply in any way I should feel 

 obliged. I am not able to try experiments as he can and 

 does. He may laugh at and despise me if he will ; but I 

 confess I have just tried my hand, moved thereto by the 

 taunt of the " Lanarkshire Bee-keeper," at di-iving some 

 bees for comb and honey that I desired for myself and 

 friends ; and so signally did I fail that, after half-an-hour's 

 hammering and tapping, I was forced to give it up and fume 

 the bees out. —A Hampshire Bee-keeper. 



[Our Hampshire friend does me no more than justice in 



