Jane 30, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



471 



should be marked in a similar manner as Blues ; they should 

 be rich, bright, and uniform in colour, not dappled and uneven, 

 as observed by far too frequently. 



Whites should, of course, be entirely and purely white, their 

 eyes shonld be dark ; the eyes of the other varieties, it should 

 have been said, mnst be red. There are sadly too many ex- 

 amples of the Pouter, like the Jacobin, possessing one of a 

 sort, or each eye half and half, which to our mind is a great 

 blemish. 



The colour and m aminos of Pouters have become, and 



properly so, an important consideration now with fanoiers ; and 

 whilst we hold of paramount importance the general structure of 

 the Pouter, still we contend that fanoiers do well to insist upon 

 the whole standard, and not on a part thereof only, as essen- 

 tial to the show Pouter, and that we should strive as zealously 

 for all its points, and look upon one as essential to the other, 

 and to regard the loss of such important features as colour and 

 markings greatly derogatory and out of character to a show 

 bird. We have had of late so many mealy, mismarked, bad- 

 coloured, gouty, coarse, Runtish-looking specimens, that we 



arejsatisfied that there is yet room for improvement, and warn- 

 ing us not to be content that one cardinal point is obtained at 

 the sacrifice of another. Yes, we are assured there is abundant 



to strive for the whole standard, in order that we may (instead 

 of twos and threes), furnish our exhibitions with scores of 

 perfect Pouters, so that this class may prove worthy the great 



room for improvement, and we would urge our fellow fanciers | encouragement afforded to their cultivation 



BEES BREEDING IN 

 Seeing in your Journal that a super was taken off a hive on 

 June 4th, you may, perhaps, be interested to know that on 

 May 18th I cut a hole in the top of an old straw hive, and put 

 on an octagon glass super bought of Mr. Lee, Windlesham. On 

 Jane 12th I took this off, and found that it contained 9 lbs. of 

 honeycomb. The same day I put on another super, and the 

 bees are now busily at work filling that, but being a straw box 

 with only a piece of glass let in on one side, how am I to tell 

 when it is full ? In the super I took off I found that only 

 5J lbs. of the comb were fit to use, the rest being filled with 



SUPERS— DRIVING. 



young bees and grubs. I had great difficulty in making the 

 bees leave, and had to brush a great many out. Now, will not 

 the bees be injured by so much brood perishing ? Would it 

 have been a better plan on finding there was brood to return 

 the super ? I could not tell before taking it off, for all the 

 comb looked white, and I found the brood was in the centre of 

 every comb. Do you think that supers with slits for commu- 

 nication from the hive are less liable to this, and how wide 

 should the slits be to give enough air? In a glass Woodbury 

 hive seven out of nine bars are nearly filled, the swarm was 



