FebrauT 27, 1873. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



195 



moveable bar-frame hive, ** uneucumbered by all fixtures ;" autl 

 lastly, my splendid "palace hive" and the said "tea-chest." 

 ■\VelJ, at they go, till the much-coveted golden-coloured turnip 

 flowers, the well-loved wild yellow mustard, the sweet-scented 

 white clover, and the rich purxjle heath, all in succession yield 

 up in no stinted measm-e their nectared stores ; and now Sep- 

 tember comes, the judges and competitors in due course con- 

 vene to know the " honey results." The different hives are 

 carefully examined, weighed, and tested, and their nett honoy- 

 gaius ascertained. There is a buzz within and a buzz without 

 the hives. The judges have decided, and the competitors are 

 anxiously waiting for the verdict. It is announced. Hear it, 

 ye incredulous ! Tlie tea-chest is declared the winner. No. 1 ; 

 John Chinaman's old orthodox, No. 2 ; Mr. Pettigrew's capacious 

 straw, No. 3; Mr. Abbot's "bar-frame," No. 4; "A Eenfbew- 

 SHiBE Bee-ivEepeb's " Stowarton and my palace hive are de- 

 clared equal. 



Now, if such supposed results were to occur in a real trial of 

 the kind proposed, and the same duly chronicled as proposed in 

 the pages of The Journal of Hobticultube for the edification 

 of the whole bee world, what a rush, might we not imagine, of 

 apiarians to tea-dealers' warehouses for a supply for the " ne 

 .pius ultra hive " at last. No such thing. The idea is too pre- 

 posterous to entertain for a moment. If such a result, I repeat, 

 might occur in a real trial of the kind proposed, and there is no 

 proper reason to urge to the contrary, then I call upon intelli- 

 gent apiarians to say if any i)riuciple could be established by it, 

 so far as good, better, best hive is concerned. "Would it convince 

 even the competitors who relied upon it '? Certainly not. As 

 your excellent correspondent "B. &W." truly indicated, they 

 would be the first to demm", and to plead some reason or another 

 to account for it. The consequence would be that new trials 

 would be proposed aud carried out, only to give rise to new 

 enigmas and fresh complications in the shape of ever- varying 

 Tesults, until after repeated tests the most sceptical would come 

 to see that unimportant differences in the hive itself had no 

 perceptible or real influence on honey results. The truth of the 

 .matter is simply this : — First, that honey results are determined 

 by the season and locality, and not by the peculiar hive; and 

 second, that in the same season and locality differences in honey 

 results in different hives, as a rule, wUl be determined or ac- 

 counted for, not by the difference of hive, but by a difference in 

 the state and condition of its population. Aid further, we 

 must neither, on the one hand, ascribe the failure of honey sup- 

 plies in a bad season or locality to the kind of hive, nor, on the 

 other hand, ascribe to the same cause the merit of large honey 

 supplies in seasons and localities of an opposite or favourable 

 chai'acter. — J. Lowe. 



HONEY HARVEST— UNITING SWARMS. 



Youa readers may hke to hear what my honey harvest for 

 1872 has been, and the result of uniting swarms by the Scotch 

 plan, which I have practised successfully for more than a dozen 

 times without a failure, except in one case in which the matter 

 was complicated by the presence of brood. 



In the autumn of 1871 I put up five depriving stocks, of which 

 one was a collateral hive, and two were common straw butts, 

 one of the latter being very weak. These lived through the 

 ■winter. Supers were added in due course, but on the 21st of 

 June the strongest hive swarmed after having two-thirds filled 

 its box. On the same day one of the common hives swarmed. 

 Not to be done out of the super, I united the two swarms which 

 ■were both very large. In five days the bees had nearly filled a 

 tolerably large stock-hive with combs. I then put on a 30-lb. 

 box and presently eked it, afterwards giving an eke with bars. 



From the top division, on account of brood, I had to cut out 

 ■what would have been 12 lbs. of comb, but obtained in the 

 barred eke enough to make a super of 4.5 lbs. nett; pretty well, 

 1[ think, from a stock hived on the 2l6t of June of the same year. 

 The stock hive was left Ught, it is true, but by giving just the 

 honey cut out of the top super, it was put up for the winter ■with 

 27 lbs. inside contents. 



No. 2, a depriving hive, did not swarm, but was doing so little, 

 that when on the 11th of July the weak straw hive swarmed, I 

 joined the swarm to it. This set the bees to work with a will, so 

 that they nearly filled a 20-lb. super. I then removed the slides 

 in its top, and put on that large super that had been deserted by 

 the bees of No. 1, and which was two-thirds full. This they 

 finished, so that I obtained a super of 48 lbs. nett. weight, more 

 than half being their own work. 



No. 3, depriving hive, after two-thirds filling a 20-lb. box 

 swarmed on the 19th July. Tliis swarm I joined with another 

 ■which came two days after, and put them in an octagon box, and 

 although 80 late in the season the bees collected 28 lbs. inside 

 by the 7th of August. When the collateral hive swarmed, the 

 bees left 10 lbs. of sealed comb in a side box. A swarm from 

 .some hive, I forget which, was placed in a very large straw butt 

 some time in July, a second swarm being joined to it a day or 

 two after. An eke was given. This I broke up, aud includiiig 



two large side combs fit for table, I obtained from it 3G lbs. of 

 honey. 



Altogether results, after four out of five of the depriving hives 

 had swarmed, were 128 lbs. of comb, aud 50 lbs. of drained honey, 

 that not being included which was returned to the stock as be- 

 fore mentioned. 



To explain my mode of manipulation, I may state in gene ral 

 terms that the Scotch plan of uniting bees is to have a box of 

 the same diameter as the stock hive, with bars aud shdes on the 

 top, large enough to contain a swarm. The latter being hived 

 in this, a little smoke is puffed into both at dusk, and the box 

 placed beneath the stock. The slides are then quietly ■with- 

 drawn, and the box left to form part of the stock hive, which 

 suits the Stewarton arrangement. I had used this plan for sonie 

 years with unvarying success either to unite weak stocks in 

 spring by joining together the upper boxes of each, or to unito 

 autumn-driven stocks to others, in which case the bos was 

 taken away at the end of t-wenty-four hours, without having 

 learned that it was ever used to join fresh swarms to obtain 

 supers the fijst year; and when I did learn the plan it appeared 

 to be useless for the hives I was then using, which were octagons, 

 9 inches in depth, containing about 1450 cubic inches, for I had 

 discarded the Ayrshire arrangement as being unsuitable for this 

 cormtry. South Wales. The method of uniting appeared to be 

 inapplicable for my hives, as they seemed incapable of holding 

 two strong swarms at once. Presently it occurred to me that by 

 a modification of the plan it might be made applicable to all 

 hives. I therefore left the uniting box below until the^ box 

 above, the permanent one, was filled with combs, then puffing a 

 little rag smoke into both boxes, the uniting box with the bees 

 in it was removed and placed on a stool on one side of the en- 

 trance, in such a way that the bees might have an easy path to 

 run in. A large super was at once put on. As the bees entered 

 the stock hive those above crowded into the super, which they 

 quickly filled. This year the results have been as I have de- 

 tailed. I find it to be desirable that before the lower box is 

 withdra^wn and a super placed on the stock, the latter should ba 

 quite full of combs. 



In conclusion, I may state that I find myself to be the only 

 bee-keeper in this district who has had a good harvest. In all 

 cases but one it was an absolute failure. The exception was 

 owing altogether to the union of swarms. — A. B., Caermartlien- 

 shire. 



WHICH KIND OF HIVE IS BEST? 



I H.i-VE just now read Mr. Abbot's letter on this subject. 

 Readers of the Journal will remember my saying that a contest 

 between A and B would settle nothing, and that a contest, if it 

 could be arranged, should include five or six popular kinds of 

 hives. Hence proposals, fair and comprehensive, were offered 

 for consideration. Without finding fault with these proposals, 

 Mr. Abbot appears with a new set of tests— all his own. The 

 trials which he proposes must come off or take place near the 

 dwelling places of the ovmers of the hives. " No person to be 

 allowed to interfere or in any way assist the owner. Each party 

 to be at liberty to use all aud every means in his power to 

 develope the advantages of his hives." At the close of his letter 

 Mr. Abbot intimates his determination not to enter on a contest 

 if the full management of his hives be not left in his own hands. 

 Mr. Abbot appears to have far more confidence in his power of 

 management than he has in his hives. I myself would exclude 

 the o-wners from interfering with or going near their hives during 

 the season of trial ; for it is not a question of good management, 

 or good nursing, or clever trickery. If a hundred trials such as 

 Mr. Abbot has proposed were to come off, they would not touch 

 or settle the question at the top of this letter. 



And now let me inform the reader that I once before met Mr. 

 Abbot ; and had he not come a long way out of his road to meet 

 me, I should probably never have had the good luck to know 

 anything at all about him. Some three months ago he made and 

 published in the pages of The Enrjlish Mechanic the following 

 remarks : — " Mr. P.'s last remark is not quite clear. What does 

 he mean by Mr. Pettigrew's system ? I never knew Mr. Petti- 

 grew had adopted anything new in bee-keeping to identify him 

 ivith any system at all, unless it be one of retrogression. Mr. 

 Pettigrew's book is simply a defence of everything that is old in 

 bee-keeping, and a railing against evei-ything that is new. If 

 that be a system, doubtless Mr. Pettigrew has many admirers. 

 If bee-keepers wiU get up a discussion on the relative merits of 

 the bar-frame hive and Ligurian bees— u la Langstroth, as against 

 the old black bees in straw skeps, and the sulphur pit— a la 

 Pettigrew, I shall be quite willing to enter the lists, and stand 

 by Langstroth — C. W. Ahbot, EanweU." A gentleman who is 

 guided in the management of his bees by my "Handy Book" 

 extracted the above from The Eiiglish Mechanic, and sent it to 

 me with a letter, in which he said it is "a tit bit," especially 

 " the sulphur pit— a la Pettigrew." If it would not vex our ex- 

 cellent friend Mr. Abbot too much, I would venture to tell him 

 that the book he so loudly condemns has already saved more bees 

 from the sulphur pit than all other works, ancient and modem, 



