April 25, 1867. ] 



JOUBNAL OP HOETIOXJLTUBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



303 



™ I omitted the following in my foregoing notes. Many breeders 

 Bay that in crossing colours the most cock chickens take after 

 the hens, and the most pullets after the cock. My own ex- 

 perience and that of my neighbours is exactly the reverse 

 of this. Most of my cock chickens in crossing took after the 

 cock, and most pullets after the hens, in all eases ; of course, 

 supposing the cock to bo equal to the hens in strength of blood 

 and colour. 



A cock chicken is a chicken until his first Christmas, if a 

 spring bred bird, a "stag" after his first Christmas, and a 

 cook after his second Christmas. A pullet is a chicken until 

 she lays her first egg, and a hen after her second Christmas, a 

 pullet until that time. 



In crossing breeds the cock chickens take most after the 

 harder and stronger strain of the two, whether the hens or 

 cock be of the harder and stronger sort ; the most pullets 

 being of the softer and weaker strain of the two used. — New- 



UABEET. 



BEE-KEEPING IN RUSSIA. 

 {Translated from the German.) 



The gigantic Kussian empire comprises, besides the Eus- 

 sians, a great many other nationalities, which are partly 

 scattered and mixed in the whole empire ; and other nation- 

 alities than the Bussian partly prevail in certain districts ; but 

 each nationality has generally its peculiar customs and manners, 

 as also, for the most part, its own modes of tUling the ground, 

 rearing cattle, &c. It is also naturally to be expected that the 

 bee is there kept in difi'erent ways by the various nationalities, 

 either more rationally or irrationally. 



I have travelled pretty much through the whole of Eussia ; at 

 least, I have visited many governments or provinces of all the 

 iour cardinal points, and I find that there is a difference in 

 bee-keeping in the north and in the soiath, in the west and in 

 the east ; but everywhere throughout Eussia, bee-keeping is 

 mostly in the hands of the peasants and the clergy. There 

 are few clergymen, in Eussia proper at least, who do not keep 

 bees. Also, in many monasteries bees are kept by the monks. 

 In Poland alone, and especially in the provinces on the Baltic, 

 clergymen seldom occupy themselves with bees. Next to the 

 peasants and clergy it is the merchants of the towns, nay even 

 of the largest, as for example Moscow, who keep bees, whilst 

 Schoolmasters and government officials do not occupy them- 

 selves with bee-keeping at all, as these persons consider it 

 beneath Ikeir dignity. Artisans also do not keep bees. There 

 are but very few landed proprietors who possess an apiary, and 

 those that do, attend not to it themselves, but leave it to their 

 inspector or starosta — i.e., elder, who is always a peasant, and 

 is chosen from those who can be most relied on. Only in the 

 provinces on the Baltic, which are for the most part inhabited 

 by Germans, and where the landowners, with the exception of 

 a few Poles, are exclusively Germans, they often take part in it. 

 But bees are kept everywhere, even in the northern govern- 

 ment of Archangel, and mostly on a large scale. It is but 

 seldom we meet with a bee-keeper, unless he be a beginner, 

 who has less than a quarter of a hundred hives. They are 

 generally owners of at least fifty to one hundred stocks — nay, 

 towards the south-east, for example the government of Oren- 

 burg, even of five hundred to one thousand stocks. Bees are 

 most extensively kept in the eastern governments, in those of 

 Isaratoff, Orenburg, Isimbirsk, Kasan, and Nishay Novgorod, 

 and also in the eastern provinces of Bessarabia, but especially 

 in Podolia, Wolhynia, and particularly in Minsk. 



In the whole of northern, middle (excepting the deserts of 

 Tula, Orel, &c.), and eastern Eussia, the bees are kept in 

 Motzbeuters,* always in the form of standers.t In southern 

 Bussia where there is no wood, bees are only seen in straw 

 ■cylinders which exactly resemble our German ones. Likewise, 

 also, in Poland, mixed however with klotzbeuters. In both dis- 

 tricts the lagerj-shape prevails. In the Polish provinces of 

 Ismolensk and Witebsk, as weD as in the north-western govern- 

 ments of Pskow, Novgorod, and Petersburg, which are in- 

 habited by Eussians, one sees only klotzbeuters, as in the north 

 and east, but almost wholly in shape of lager-hives. The 

 stiinders, which are very small, are used only for hanging in 

 trees in the forests near the apiary in order that swarms which 

 fly away may enter these hives, which they almost always do. 



* Hivea formed of the hollow trtinks of trees. 

 ■»h* *',?"8''t hives, having gencially two or more compartments one above 



t Horteont&I, 



In the Baltic provinces, however, the upright klotzbeuters are 

 the most common bee-hives ; also in southern Finnland, at 

 any rate near Abo. Only in southern Ourlaud, on the Witebsk 

 boundary, did I meet with the lager-form. 



But the klotzbeuter-lagers in Eussia are not, as in many 

 districts of Germany, placed horizontally ; one side is always 

 considerably higher than the other, being raised on poles or 

 stones. The swarm in this case, of course, begins comb-build- 

 ing in the highest part of the hive. The straw cylinders, how- 

 ever, mentioned as being used in Poland, in southern Eussia, 

 and in the districts of the northern deserts are very seldom 

 placed, as in Germany, in special bee-houses, but for the most 

 part single, a distance of several paces being left between the 

 hives, and each being thatched with straw or roofs of reed, like 

 little houses. The standing klotzbeuters never have a wooden 

 roof throughout all Eussia ; they are always covered in but a 

 rough manner with the bark of birch trees or firs, the bark 

 being weighted down with stones^that the wind may not blow 

 it off. 



In the civilised provinces— i.e., the Baltic provinces and 

 Poland proper, which have more or less of European culture, 

 bees are also kept in magazine-boxes by some, and recently 

 even in Dzierzon hives, but they are very few, and scarcely 

 worth mentioning. But in Eussia proper no one knows 

 Dzierzon, not even by name, excepting only the professors of 

 zoology. Lately, however, there has appeared a Eussian work 

 on bee-keeping, by Professor K , of the Gorigoretzk Agri- 

 cultural Institute, originally a German, who mentions some- 

 thing about Dzierzon and You Berlepsch, but rejects the hives 

 of both these gentlemen as " impracticable," and recommends 

 his own, a depraved magazine-hive. Under such auspices 

 Dzierzon's method certainly cannot find its way into Eussia 

 jjroper. 



As to the management of bees, it varies much m different 

 districts. Throughout the whole of the eastern part of Eussia 

 they adopt the swarming system, but manage it differently from 

 the Germans. First and second swarms which issue early are 

 planted singly, and wintered as stock hives. As soon as the 

 desired number of stocks are obtained all the swarms which 

 issue afterwards are formed into gigantic colonies. From 

 three, four, five to ten swarms are united in a huge klotzbeuter, 

 so that a swarm thus made weighs from 10 to 20 and more lbs. 

 If several swarms do not issue in one day, so that such a 

 gigantic stock may be made at once, then swarms are added to 

 the young stock one by one. In doing this, the bee-keepers 

 are not particular whether first swarms are united with first 

 swarms, or first swarms with second swarms. The swarms 

 which are to be united are well sprinkled with honey-water, 

 and fumigated very strongly with the smoke of rotten willow 

 wood. The superfluous queens are never removed previously ; 

 this is left to the bees. It is strange that in this irrational 

 proceeding but few bees are killed, which is, perhaps, owing to 

 sprinkling them well with honey-water and fumigating them 

 strongly. In autumn, generally in October, these colossuses are 

 sold to the so-called " bee- slaughtermen " (hteral translation 

 from the Eussian, Pscheloboitschik) , who kill them with brim- 

 stone, and then prepare an emulsion of honey, brood, bees, and 

 the excrements of cattle with which the interstices of the hives 

 are closed, and sell this mixture in casks of 20, 40, to 60 lbs. 

 and more to merchants in the towns. Parent hives, which are 

 too light, and which have not gathered sufficient food for 

 the long winter, the owners do not sell to "bee-knackers 

 (flayers)," but cut out the combs and let the bees fly where 

 they like. For the bee-keeper in this district thinks it a 

 great sin to kill bees with his own hands ; but if he leaves it to 

 the bee-flayers, he, according to his own opinion, has washed 

 his hands of it. Late in the autumn, as soon as snow has 

 fallen, all the stocks are taken into a dark room which is 

 distant from the dwelling-house and not heated, or into some 

 locality built for this particular purpose ; the entrances are 

 loosely stopped with straw, and the outside of the building 

 is covered with straw and brushwood. The bee-keeper does 

 not now look after his bees until spring. The stocks are 

 never fed, either in winter or in spring. They leave them 

 always honey enough to have still plenty in the spring. In 

 spring, the second day after having taken out the stocks, which 

 are placed singly in the garden or in the woods, they are 

 examined. First, the lowest door is opened, the dead bees are 

 swept out, and those combs which may have become mouldy 

 are removed, but only those which are very mouldy ; for, if 

 possible, no ceU of good comb is damaged. The next day, 

 or not till the third day, the head (top) is examined, where 



