208 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ September 12, 1867. 



I do not Bee in any of the bee books any efficient and easily- 

 applied remedy for the sting of a bee. I beard of one the other 

 day from a friend of mine, at once simple, cheap, and effectual, 

 and it is generally near at band, too, and that is good vinegar. 

 I have never seen it mentioned before, but I venture to say, if 

 your readers will try it, they will need no other remedy. — 

 J. E. J. 



[I was just as fortunate as your correspondent with the first 

 Ligurian queens which I imported, and like him felt confident 

 of continued success. Caution is, however, born of experience, 

 and the advice given by me in page 188 is the result of eight 

 years' practice, embracing some hundreds of operations, varied 

 in almost every conceivable manner. 



Young bees receive a strange queen much more readily than 

 old ones, and for this reason an Italian queen may be given 

 to a small swarm or nucleus formed in the manner advised by 

 me in " our .Journal " of the 11th of April last, with a good 

 chance of her being accepted. Immersing the alien queen in 

 liquid honey, and then dropping her into the hive at the top is 

 an American plan, and by no means a bad one. When adopted 

 with a nucleus consisting only of ymmr] bees, I regard its success 

 as tolerably certain, and being also simple and easy, I recom- 

 mended it to " .J. R. J." 



Vinegar is probably just as good as a great many other re- 

 puted remedies for bee stings. — A Detonbhire Bee-zeeper.] 



NOTES OF EXPERIENCE IN BEE-KEEPING. 



Several times during this bee-season have I been on the 

 point of writing you with regard to its extraordinary nature, 

 but have not done so, wishing to hear from others in different 

 parts of the country whether their bees had been similarly 

 affected as mine. 



I consider it as a whole never to have been a worse year. 

 Unquestionably, as regards swarming, or rather want of it, it 

 has been with me most remarkable. As regards honey, I 

 should say that in this neighbourhood (Blackheath), from the 

 2oth of June to the 14th of .July inclusive, when the limes were 

 in full blossom, I rarely remember a better collection, the 

 ■weather having been most favourable (a moist warmth, with a 

 good deal of electricity in the air), causing the blossoms to yield 

 large quantities of honey, the atmosphere being at times quite 

 oppressive with its perfume ; but with the exception of those 

 lew days both before and afterwards till the lOtli of Augnst, 

 there has been no storing up of food ; in fact, all cells not sealed 

 np were gradually becoming emptied ; but on the 11th July, 

 np to that excessively hot day (14ih of August), and at intervals 

 to the 25th of August, they again began to collect from the 

 white clover, and many ceDs were completed and closed. 



I really think it takes upwards of a quarter of a century for 

 a bee-keeper thoroughly to understand the different phases of 

 bee-keeping, and to complete the cycle of bee years ; for I never 

 remember any season more perplexing, even to veteran ama- 

 teurs, let alone those unfortunate beings who may, perhaps, for 

 the first time have commenced with one or two stocks in the 

 spring. For their consolation let it be known that a certain 

 party has kept bees more than twenty five years, and never 

 remembers such a year as this. One thing I have learnt — viz., 

 that Ligurian bees beat the ordinary black bees hollow ; the 

 stock I bad of my friend Mr. Woodbury last year is the only 

 hive which swarmed, and that twice, out of eleven hives with 

 which I began the spring. The queen's extraordinary fecundity 

 is such that she soon fills the hive with workers. Then, again, 

 her progeny have such activity, spirit, and dash in them that 

 they are always the first at work, even on a bad morning. 

 Look at the entrance — no loitering ; in and out like rockets, 

 yellow-coated fellows vigorously flapping in regular lines, 

 through which the workers pass with wonderful activity, and 

 evidently "meaning business." 



I have also learnt that a hybrid race from a Ligurian queen 

 impregnated by a common drone has the same extraordinary 

 vigour, and the queen the same wonderful fecundity, for the 

 hive from which the old Ligurian queen swarmed is as full of 

 bees as most of the other hives which have never swarmed at 

 all, and this after having swarmed twice ! 



I have this year again proved the duration of the life of the 

 working bee in the summer season. I then proved it to be in 

 no case more than two months, and owing to the young virgin 

 Ligurian queen having been impregnated by a common drone 

 between the 19tb and 24th of June, and the hybrids manifestly 

 appearing in numbers abont the 20th to the 25th of July, I 



was at once enabled to see the distinction between them and tlie 

 old Ligurian workers left behind when the old queen swarmed, 

 These latter entirely disappeared about the 20th of August, 

 as there could have been no pure Ligurian eggs laid since 

 the 9th of June, when the old queen left the hive. Up to the 

 first week of August I used to see now and then a pure Ligu- 

 rian, but in that woebegone, draggled, ragged-winged condition 

 denoting hard work and old age ; these were rapidly eliminated 

 by their more juvenile brethren, and now I do not find one. 



As early as the 13th of May two of my most favoured stocks 

 began every cold morning to turn out drone brood, and this 

 continued, more or less, in all my hives (except the Ligurian), 

 until about the 25th of June, when the limes beginning to 

 blossom, and the warm weather setting in, they gave it up for 

 a more profitable occupation. So certain was I that this early 

 drone-killing would hinder swarming, that in most cases as it 

 occurred I at once put on supers for honey-storing, taking the 

 risk of the queen laying her eggs therein. My usual time for 

 this in ordinary years being about the 10th of June, I have 

 never been wrong in taking it as a certain sign of non-swarm- 

 ing when a hive at any season turns out their drone brood. 

 The unusually cold and sunless May and June was undoubtedly 

 the cause of this early slaughter this season, and there can be 

 no question that it had an equal effect in retarding worker 

 egg-laying by the queen. 



I never remember the white clover blossoming, or continuing 

 to blossom, so late in July and August as during the present 

 year. In ordinary times it begins to open with us about the 

 28th of June, and is all over by about the end of July at latest. 

 I did not see any till the cth of July; and on the 15th of 

 August it was in full blossom all over the fields and in great 

 abundance, and did not fail the bees for at least ten days later. 

 Altogether it has been a most anomalous season, and one I 

 hope never to see again. 



Did ever any of your correspondents keep what I call a 

 " swarm barometer?" It is simply a hive or two which have 

 had comb cut out, all excepting two or three small pieces at 

 the top. These I generally keep some little distance away from 

 the apiary ; and almost invariably when any of my hives are 

 about to swarm, I have notice of the same at least a week 

 beforehand. In the case of the Ligurians this year I was fore- 

 warned of both my swarms by the fussy dodging in and out of 

 these " empties " by the yellow-coated fellows. On the swarms 

 taking place these are immediately neglected. I have had 

 them taken possession of direct by a swarm several times, so 

 it is as well not to have them in the middle of the apiary for 

 fear of a scrimmage. My first Ligurian swarm this year on 

 the 9th of June was so taken up with examining these " baro- 

 meters," that more than an hour after I had hived the swarm 

 and everything was quiet, all of a sudden they began to come 

 out, and at once I saw what they intended. The swarm had 

 settled about 40 feet from the apiary, and in a few minutes 

 a steady stream began to pour into one of these empty hives, 

 which had a small quantity of comb in it. I was not going to 

 be done in this way, as in the evening I intended to put them 

 into a Woodbury hive and the comb might have bothered me, 

 so I quietly whipped nii the hive into which they were pouring 

 and replaced it with luu hive into which they had first been 

 placed and which was now deserted, and they evidently did not 

 see the difference, for they just settled into it at once. I cannot 

 help thinking that in most cases with prime swarms, and 

 sometimes with second swarms, the bees look out for a suitable 

 habitation, and if fouud would, if left alone, proceed straight 

 to it after resting on a bush for an interval. As in the case 

 of the ordinary weather barometer, this '-swarm barometer'* 

 must not be implicitly relied upon ; but like its congener, with 

 other symptoms superadded it does afford indications which an 

 attentive observer should never neglect. 



I write this on the 2nd of September, and it is only during 

 the last week that my Ligurians have ceased seaUng up cells 

 with honey — a thing unprecedented at this time of the year, 

 where heather does not exist. — A Blackheath'as. 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Craven Poiti.try Show. — " The correspondent who sent you an ac- 

 count of the Craven Show, has made several mistakes — viz.. First prize 

 to Black Hamburghs was awarded to me, and not to Mr. Beldon ; also, 

 I obtained First itnd Second in Cochin-China chickens, Mr. R. Smith 

 getting nothing. — Charles Sidgwick, Ryddleiden Hall, KeifihUy." 



Skipton Poultry Show. — "You say in Do'-ks, Any other variety, Mr. 

 Beldon was first, which is a mistake, ns both first and second were 

 awarded to me.— Jas. Dixon, North Park, Brad/i/rd," 



