Jaannry 2, 18e8. 1 



JOURNAL OP HORTIOULTUKE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



19 



and in my kitchen there are gallons of thera. I once tried the 

 hedgehoK l'li"i ^^ "j" I'eancry, Weatminstcr. The first night 

 after his arrival the Abbey watchman was frightened out of hia 

 wita— it was the hedgehog. The next night, fast asleep, I felt 

 a, cold lOHO on my face, and then a prickly thing trying to got 

 into ) e bed— it was the hedgehog. The next night the ser- 

 vant] 'came trembling to say there was n burglar in the dining- 

 roo«, rattling the plate— it was the hedgehog. The next night 

 thetook put some soup away, and in the morning the soup 

 was gone — the hedgehog was found coiled up asleep in the 

 tureen. The next night nothing was heard of the hedgehog, 

 and for weeks we could not tell where he was gone ; the cook 

 was thankful, and the crickets sang, O, be joyful, while the 

 blackbeetles had the free run of the kitchen. • Years rolled on,' 

 as the novelists have it, and a skeleton was discovered in the 

 flue, which had smoked the whole of the house out for weeks. 

 The hedgehog again. Thank goodness, I have seen the last of 

 that wretch, and never wish to have another of his kind on the 

 promises. Unless, therefore, my friends wish to run the chance 

 of a hedgehog becoming the same pest to them as he was to 

 me, they will never introduce them into their houses. Hedge- 

 hogs will only eat a certain number of beetles, and the beetles 

 having good spawning ground behind the kitchen range, breed 

 much faster than the hedgehog can eat." 



1 have, however, found that by the use of some phosphoric 

 boluses prepared by Mr. Chase, of 14, Holborn, the beetles are 

 destroyed very effectually. It is well, however, to give the 

 beetles a supper of these at intervals of a fortnight, so that the 

 successional crops of the young blacks may be also provided for. 

 — C. W. J. 



FOUL BROOD— LIGURI AN QUEEN RAISING. 



The majority of the readers of the bee department of " our 

 Journal " are aware that the breeding of artificial queens, 

 increase of stocks, and their welfare, are in proportion to the 

 abundance and length of the honey season. The absence of 

 the former, and short duration of the latter, limited the harvest 

 of honey from my stock hives, yet has not prevented my raising 

 a fair quantity of queens from the stock of Ligurians received 

 from Mr. Woodbury last April, and also a few from the foul- 

 breeding one obtained from Messrs. Neighbour & Sons, who, I 

 may here say, have since made me full compensation for that 

 unfortunate occurrence. 



About the middle of May I commenced the interesting 

 experiment of making artificial swarms, as recommended and 

 described in this Journal by Mr. Woodbury. From the above 

 date to the 2nd of July I had made sufficient swarms to enable 

 me to raise twelve Ligurian queens, which were all out by the 

 12th of July. I had still another Ligurian queen, raised 

 naturally ; for the original stock, after all my manipulations 

 and the abstraction of five ripe brood combs for artificial 

 swarms, and the bees, to strengthen them, threw off a swarm 

 on the 14th of July, the weight of which was a little more than 



lbs ! When looking over the original stock some days 

 afterwards I discovered unmistakeable signs of foul brood in a 

 frame that had come from a stock, the combs of which had been 

 exchanged with those of Messrs. Neighbours' diseased one before 



1 was aware of the existence of that terrible malady. The 

 original Ligurian was the only stock I saw attempt to clean 

 out foul cells, which it did most thoroughly. 



The last queen made thirteen queens, nine of which were 

 from Mr. Woodbury's stock, and four from Messrs. Neighbours'. 

 Eleven of these became impregnated, and seven of them bred 

 pure Ligurians. This I consider a good per-centag5 of pure- 

 breeding queens, considering that I had only three stocks that 

 bred pure drones. I still have five of those pure queens, which 

 were given to black and hybridised bees, as I shall presently 

 show. The rest I gave away or destroyed, with their bees, at 

 the break-up of my old apiary from foul brood, which caused 

 the destruction of sixteen stocks and nuclei, as well as the loss 

 of 120 frames of straight worker brood combs ! 



Before giving an account of how I succeeded in adding these 

 queens to populous stocks and driven bees, I may be permitted 

 to state the cause of these proceedings, which was this. When 

 I had increased my apiary to upwards of twenty stocks, I made 

 the unpleasant discovery of the existence of foul brood (as 

 described in the Journal of the 1st of August last) in all my 

 nuclei and first-formed stocks ; the black bees set apart to 

 strengthen swarms, and all, were eventually infected by it, with 

 the exception of three supered stocks, two of which were black 

 bees and the third hybrids. 



My first step was, on the 11th of July, to put the diaeasad 

 stock through quarantine,* but I left matters generally much 

 as they were until my neighbours began to take tht^ir bees. 

 Such being the case, on the 7th of August I commenced 

 operations by driving the bees of two candomned stocks 

 separately, conveyed them home — a mile distant — taking from 

 them at once their queens, and putting them together in an 

 empty straw skep. Twenty-four to thirty hours afterwards I 

 offered thera the last-mentioned queen in the manner described 

 by " J. It. J.," in No. 337, on the top of the hive under a wine 

 glass, letting in the bees one or two at a time to see how they 

 received their future sovereign. They at once took to her, so 1 

 transferred them to a full-sized Woodbury hive with six frames 

 of brood from other condemned colonies. They were fed 

 liberally, and are now one of my stock hives. 



My second essay was as follows : — 1 drove two other stocks of 

 bees at once, and brought them to my trial ground, as I now 

 styled the old orchard, which is upwards of 100 yards distant 

 from the apiary. Being deprived of their queen as before, they 

 were also left twenty-four to thirty hours. I then drove all the 

 bees out of the two Stewarton boxes, taking them to the poor 

 unfortunates, knocking the latter out on a sheet, and setting 

 the heavy Stewarton boxes in front of them. They very soon 

 began a march towards them ; and as they entered them with 

 the song of gladness, I presented them with a young fertile 

 Ligurian queen, which was welcomed with excessive joy, as 

 they marched merrily into their well-furnished dwelling. 



The next attempt was with a stock of bees in a frame hive 

 that had swarmed twice, and had one of those small queens 

 which I have mentioned before. She wos removed, and 

 another fertile Ligurian presented to them the same day, 

 towards evening, on the top of the hive. All went well with 

 this stock, for the next day they began to carry in pollen, and 

 killed-oft their drones. 



In the same manner I continued my exchange of queens, 

 the driven bees of one stock that was healthy being ready for 

 the next. Simultaneously with the removal of the Ligurian 

 queens from diseased stocks, I destroyed them, and so con- 

 tinued until I had disposed of them all, principally intro- 

 ducing them at the top of the hive. At times I had a rebel 

 to deal with ; but I was in the end successful with the whole 

 six. 



In the case of the seventh essay, both the theory and practice 

 of giving queens at the top, as described by " J. R. J.," and 

 which he seemed confident was never-failing, was thrown to 

 the winds. 



Two other lots of driven bees were each early one morn- 

 ing deprived of their queens. They even were so good- 

 natured as to unite of their own accord. About thirty hours 

 afterwards my favourite queen was offered to them, precisely 

 the same precautions being taken, the same means used, and 

 all visible conditions being precisely identical. But, no, they 

 would not have her. One bee would fight, and a number soon 

 clung round her like a ball, which I separated, bee by bee, in 

 my naked hands without receiving a sting, until I came to the 

 unfortunate queen. They did not seem to try to sting her, 

 but only held her fast. After being rescued from them she 

 was placed over the hive until the fourth day, when matters 

 appearing a little more peaceable she was let in, but on the 

 eighth day was turned out dead, proving that in bee life there 

 is no rule without its exceptions. 



The instincts of the bees are, no doubt, sufficient for them 

 in their native regions, and in their wild state. Here they are, 

 as it were, under foreign conditions — driven from their stores, 

 deprived of their queen ; and under such circumstances we 

 must not be surprised if we do not always find results in 

 accordance with our expectations. Further, if we could know 

 all the unseen causes that are at work, I believe we should 

 then find that they always do precisely the same thing under 

 the same conditions. Apparent are not always real circum- 

 stances. Apart from the accepting of queens, there is at times 

 the refusal of combs, the refusal of hives, and many other 

 apparent anomalies, all of which have their cause. 



Lastly, as regards the best method of giving bees new queens, 

 with all due deference to Mr. Woodbury's plan which is, no 

 doubt, the best for his hives, let me ask how he would carry 

 it out in Stewarton boxes, without frames, and in common straw 

 hives. It is not my intention to offer any opinion of my own. 

 not, but that it is decided enough. In conclusion, then, I 

 must apologise for having taken up so much valuable space in 



* I eventually destroyed it, keeping its Queen for future use; 



