May 7, 18f*. ] 



JODBNAL OF HORTICOLTDBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEB. 



353 



queen, and altliough she ia a " doubtful " one, she breeds very 

 well-marked Ligurians. — J. R. J. 



I It is certainly strange that bees should be slaughtered on 

 tbelr return to their parent hive after so brief an absence. It 

 may possibly be accounted for by the supposition that they 

 carried with them the odour of another stock, and were there- 

 fore treated as strangers. We know that a similar hypothesis 

 has been advanced in respect to queens destroyed by their 

 worker sisters on their return from a wedding trip. You ran 

 a great risk of losing the queen by introducing the adult bees 

 which adhered to the brood comb, and we should advise you by 

 no means to repeat the experiment. If the bees in the nucleus 

 are too few to cover and hatch out an additional brood comb, 

 wo should exchange one of their own for another and a riper 

 one from a strong stock. In very extreme cases we have some- 

 times spent hours in picking off one by one, and dropping 

 into a tumbler covered with the pitfall-like top of an invalid's 

 expectorating cup, some hundreds of grey young bees from the 

 combs of a strong stock in order to add them to a nucleus. 

 Such bees will not attack a queen, and must perforce remain 

 permanently attached to the colony to which they are trans- 

 ferred. ] 



HOW TO BREED PURE QUEENS— IMPORTANT 

 DISCOVERY. 



I WISH to call the attention of English bee-keepers to a most 

 important discovery made by M. Koehler, a Protestant minister 

 in Hesse. It is no less than the secret of directing the breeding 

 of the bee ; so that, as with our cattle, we may select the 

 choicest male to be the father of the future stock. The dis- 

 covery would appear almost too wonderful to be true, but its 

 value and reality are vouched for by some_of the leading bee- 

 keepers in Germany. 



Mr. Koehler will communicate his discovery upon a promise, 

 on honour, of strict secrecy for the present, and a fee. — Henry 

 OE EoMESTiN, Enijlish Chaplain at Baden. 



[Mr. Koehler's process having been communicated to me, I 

 can state that it is simple and perfectly feasible. It has, more- 

 over, been tried by some of the leading apiarians in Germany, 

 who have publicly testified to its success. I have not yet had 

 time to test the discovery myself, but as it is in strict accord- 

 ance with the instincts and habits of the insects, I have no 

 doubt whatever of its effecting the desired end. 



At the request of Mr. de Romestin I have consented to re- 

 ceive the names and addresses of those who may be desirous 

 of becoming acquainted with Mr. Koehler's process. All appli- 

 cations must be accompanied by a promise of secrecy and a 

 post-ofSce order for 10s. Gd. fee and postage, in return for which 

 printed instructions will be forwarded. Any one requiring an 

 immediate acknowledgement of their remittance should also 

 enclose a stamped and directed envelope. — T. W. Woodbury, 

 (" A Devo2«bhike Bee-keeper "), Mount Radford, Exeter.] 



PROCURING ARTIFICIAL SWARMS. 



I SHALL be glad to know it the following plans will answer- 



Ist. Put a frame, having a queen's cell from a Ligurian 

 hive and its accompanying bees, into a hive, and put it in place 

 of a black stock. Will the Ligurians inside and returning 

 black bees quarrel ? I presume drone comb will be built at 

 first, which I would remove when the young Ligurian queen 

 begins laying. I ought to mention I have no worker comb to 

 give the bees at first. 



2nd. Fit comb from an entire colony into frames, having a 

 Ligurian queen's cell in the centre one, all rival cells being cut 

 out, and put this hive in place of another black colony. Will 

 the returning bees raise the Ligurian royal embryo ? — C. A. .J. 



[Either of the above plans are likely to answer, but it would 

 be weU that the comb should contain pure Ligurian brood in 

 all stages, as well as a royal cell or cells in case of the latter 

 happening to he torn out by the returning bees during their tirst 

 excitement or discovering the change that has taken place.] 



FRAME HIVES. 



I SEND you a frame such as I use, and think it simpler than 

 those I generally see drawings of in " our Journal." I have 

 others made with a bead in the centre of the frames, and find 



it a great guide for straight comb-making. It simply consists 

 of a small strip fastened on with three tin tacks. 



The method of fixing the combs in frames could, I think, be 

 more easily done with indiarubber bands. I used them last 

 year, and found them very handy, especially if you are trans- 

 ferring bees from a straw hive to a Woodbury, saving time, 

 too, as you get them into their new homo at one operation. 

 — J. J. S. 



[Your frame is similar to those ordinarily used, dlfiering 

 somewhat in its mode of constractiun by being dovetailed 

 instead of morticed at the top, whilst the bottom rail rests in 

 a notch at each end, and is farther secured by copper wire. 

 These frames are stronger and more simple than the " com- 

 pound" ones used by Mr. Woodbury, which, however, possess, 

 as he believes, some special advantages. The idea of using 

 indiarubber bands for the temporary support of combs ia new 

 to us, and appears a good one.] 



SILKWORM-REARING IN ENGLAND.— No. 9. 



What preparation do silkworms' eggs require before hatch- 

 ing ■? It is customary with a wooden knife or metal spoon to 

 scrape them from the linen on which they were laid, after 

 soaking it in pure soft water about twenty minutes, to soften 

 the gum, causing them to separate easily. This operation is 

 best performed in autumn, or not later than the beginning of 

 March, before the worms begin to develope in the eggs. The 

 eggs are afterwards washed in water, moving them about gently 

 with the hands, and separating those which stick together. 

 After a few minutes the best and heaviest will remain at the 

 bottom ; and the inferior and light, floating on the water, can 

 be poured away. Then the good eggs should be collected on 

 a cloth, horsehair sieve, or tine canvas, hung up to drain from 

 the water, and afterwards spread out on cloth or blotting paper 

 to dry, being now and then turned with a spoon, separating 

 them gently with the hands as the drying proceeds. Some 

 authors recommend soaking the eggs in wine, brandy, or cer- 

 tain chemicals as preservatives from disease. I consider the 

 proceeding very unnatural ; but using water is but following 

 Nature's course, for the eggs on the mulberry trees in the 

 silkworms' native country are exposed to rain. 



The reasons for detaching the eggs from the linen are to 

 separate the good from the bad — to clean, weigh, and arrange 

 in the hatching box in less space, and thus to facilitate collect- 

 ing the worms. The -Japanese breeds sent over to France and 

 Italy are on cardboard, and are left to hatch on it, because to 

 scrape them off when wetted is almost impossible without bits 

 of paper coming away with them. Eggs produced at home 

 would be preferable, but at the present day it is considered 

 necessary to procure them every year or two from the native 

 country of these breeds, or at least from certain districts free 

 from disease. 



Eggs of good quality are of a grey ash colour rather inclining 

 to violet, spherical, somewhat depressed in their centre, and 

 elastic under the pressure of a person's nails. A transparent 

 fluid issues out on their being broken, and if thrown on the 

 fire they will crack. 



It would add to success in rearing silkworms in England if 

 the hatching of the eggs were retarded by keeping them as cool 

 as possible after January, without freezing, in earthen pots, 

 nans, or jars in a dry cellar. If the mulberry trees are well in 

 leaf as early as the middle of May, the eggs may be set to 

 hatch, and this is early enough ; indeed the end of the month 

 is better, but sometimes it would be impossible to prevent 

 natural hatching before this time, unless by means of an ice 

 house. 



If eggs have not been preserved properly, they will often 

 hatch by the end of April before there are leaves for them, and 

 oblige the rearer either to throw them away, or try a portion 

 only on lettuce until the mulberry leaves are more forward. 



When the eggs are about to hatch they assume a whitish 

 cast. A few worms may very probably be seen out. When 

 this is the case, no alternative remains but to bring the eggs 

 from the cellar to an upper room, and deposit them in the 

 hatching box. Whatever the natural temperature may be in the 

 room towards the time the sun goes down, that is to be main- 

 tained all night in the little hatching room, to which the eggs 

 are removed. Suppose such temperature to be only -55°, next 

 day let it be raised gradually, until at night it is 05°, and by 

 the following morning 70' may be reached and maintained 

 continually. Should the temperature on the first day be more 



