162 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



r August 22, 1865. 



Btrong swarms. Why do I not succeed ? How large ought the 

 supers to be ? — Mintlyn. 



[Suffocation or dysentery are the only causes which appear 

 likely to have produced such a catastrophe. If the entrance to 

 the hive be very narrow, the accidental obstruction caused by 

 the presence of a few dead bees may possibly have caused the 

 former, whilst the latter would be indicated by the dead bodies 

 being swollen to an luiusual size. 



The want of decoy combs in your glasses would be a probable 

 reason for your iU-suceess. Supers may be of any size from 

 3 or 4 lbs. up to 50, or even more.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES TOUCHING BEE-IvEEriNG. 



1. I CAN quite corroborate what Mr. Bevan Fox says in favour 

 of the plan of getting rid of the bees from supers by driving. 

 I have not had many glasses to deal with, the bulk of my honey 

 baring been taken from duplicate bar-frame-hives used as 

 supers ; but on taking off the last glass, being pressed for time, 

 I bethought mo to try the effect of di-iving ; tlierefore, keeping 

 the whole glass carefully covered, I turned it bottom upwards, 

 tapping the edge of the adapter against a doorpost. In about 

 five minutes there was the usual hubbub among the bees, and 

 out they rushed in a steady stream, and I had no difficulty 

 whatever. I had made a memorandum to try the plan more 

 fully next season, and am glad to find my experience is correct 

 so far as it goes. 



2. Can any one explain how it is that one particular hive in 

 a neighbouring apiary has not swarmed for six years ? It is a 

 good-sized hexagon, rather large certainly, but, I think, not 

 sufficiently so to account for the fact. The hive has always 

 been strong, and has worked well in glasses. The reason gene- 

 rally given — namely, that the queen is from some cause imable 

 to fly — win hartUy hold good here, as the hive is now six years 

 old, and this exceeds the highest estimate of the age of a queen. 

 My neighbour, who is a most successful apiarian, and generally 

 contrives to have both honey and swarms, proposes to drive it, 

 and add the bees to a swarm of this year. 



3. In removing a double hive (one placed above the other), to 

 or from the moors, it would be much more convenient to sepa- 

 rate them, and pack each by itself with perforated zinc ; but 

 will the bees in the super travel safely for twelve hours if 

 separated from the queen, and having no young brood with 

 them ? Notwithstanding every care, many deaths occur in the 

 removal of a single hive, and I imagine that the agitation and 

 excitement of the bees in the case supposed might produce 

 much mischief. I ask the question, because it is a serious 

 matter to remove a hive of 70 or 80 lbs. to any distance, and 

 especially with new combs in the super. There are far more 

 bees than the lower liive alone will contain. 



4. Being inchned to experiment a little in various materials 

 for hives, I should feel much obliged by any information as to 

 similar trials. As between wood and straw, it seems to be 

 now generally admitted that straw has the preference. The 

 difficulty is, that while it is easy to have wooden hives made 

 to any pattern, a square straw hive is beyond the skill of a 

 country workman. Has cedar been fairly tried against Ameri- 

 can pine ? The former seems to be a more porous and spongy 

 wood, but the only plea which I have seen urged in its favour 

 does not seem a somid one — namely, that the odom- is grateful 

 to the bees, but distasteful to the moths. Is this a fact ? be- 

 cause, ordinarily speaking, what is favom-able to the one insect 

 is also favourable to the other, and vice versr'i. Also, has 

 paper or millboard, 1 or 1 J inch thick, been tried ? Many years 

 ago hives seem to have been made of this material, and at a 

 very cheap rate, but I have never heard how they answered ; 

 and there is tan, respecting which your valued correspondent 

 Mr. George Fox has spoken most highly. May I ask if his hives 

 stand well, and if he still thinks as highly of the material as 

 he did at first ? — F. H. West, Pottenifwtor'i, near Leak. 



[Your neighbour's stock having worked well in glasses appears 

 a sufficient reason for its not swarming. Bees shut up in a 

 super would certainly not be likely to travel safely for twelve 

 hours. We shall be glad to receive information in reply to 

 our correspondent's last query.] 



with honey-box the usual depth ; each box is fitted with four 

 frames in the centre of the windows, .5 by 'S\ inches. The hive 

 is of superior finish, and is altogether the best idea (after using 

 them largely for the last twenty years), I have yet seen of the 

 Stewarton hive s. The directions for managing these, with the 

 aid of the diagram sent along with them by Mr. Eaglesham, are 

 so simple and explicit, that the merest tyro in bee-culture could 

 have no difficulty in working them witli suscess. — Urbanus. 



[We are very glad to find from the above, and from Mr. 

 Eaglesham himself, that he is 7iot dead.] 



Stewakton Hives. — Referring to the notice regarding Stew- 

 arton hives from " Yorkshire," at page 102, allow me to state 

 that I have recently had a complete octagon hive from Mr. 

 Eaglesham, Stewarton, coneisting of two boxes 9 inches deep, 



Wasps. — Has anybody seen a wasp since May? In April the 

 queens were so numerous that it was supposed we should have 

 in the autiunn an overwhehning supply of these troublesome 

 and destructive insects, and it is recorded that one gentleman 

 paid more than £6 for the destruction of queens in Ins gardens 

 and grounds during that month. He might have saved his 

 money. The sharp frost of the 1st of iUay appears to have 

 done its work iu destroying these insects, scarcely one having 

 been seeu since ; so that the swarms wliicli have in some years 

 infested our houses, eaten oiu- fruit, and given animation to the 

 grocers' windows, are this year nowhere to be found. The com- 

 plaint this year is of earwigs, which infest every house iu the 

 outskirts of the town and in the country. — {Davcntnj Exjireas.) 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Chickens Dtihg (Two Dans).— We are at. a loss to account for the 

 death of your chickens, unless they find something poisonous about the 

 premises. This, however, would liot be the case ever>T\'here. If you 

 were to open one you would probably find the cause. We know nothing 

 that would attack them at that age that would not do so earlier. Feed 

 them generously on bread and ale, and put CTiupbor in their water. 

 I Distinguishing the Sexes of Guinea Fowls (Gf/nifn).— The reason 

 why you get no produce from the eggs is because they are both hens. It 

 is difficult to tell the sex, but the cock has longer wattles, aud a larger 

 coronet ou his head. The hen only calls '■ Come b;tck;" tbe cock utters 

 a kind of wail. They pair as strictly as Partridges ; and, unless an equal 

 number of each sex be kept, there will always be many bad eggs. It is 

 easy to tell the age. In the young bird the coronet or lump on the top 

 of the head is covered with soft skin ; in the old one the skin has become 

 a hard broTVTi crust. 



Foists OF GoLDES-svAtiGLEiyliATaBVRGHii {Erh ihitor of Gohlrn-itpangled 

 Hambiuffh.i). — The distinction in question was in answer to a ai>ecial case, 

 ill which a man justified a Golden-spangled Hamburgh with red ears by 

 calling it a Moonoy. We have always said, and we repeat, the white 

 deaf ear is indispensable — one of the most positive and important points 

 of the breed. Those who recollect the beautiful birds bred and shown 

 by the late Mr. W. W^orrall will at once admit that, although there may be 

 difficulty in getting this, as there is all other marks of perfection, yet 

 that gentleman never showed a pen in which the hen'ri cars were not the 

 size, shajie. and colour of a new fourpenny-piece. Wo have often heard 

 Moonies and Spangled Hamburghs called the same breed, and we have 

 agreed with those who thought so ; but these birds are the old Jloutagues 

 and Capulets— Yorkshire wanted black breasts, Lancashire would have 

 them spangled. Yenrs before this controversy some contended forhenny 

 tails, others for full tails. Now this present question arises from the 

 distinction dra^ii by an amateur or a denier between Mooney and Golden- 

 spangle. The local Yorkt^hire Red-cap, a Golden-spangle, with exaggerated 

 comb and gills, should have a red deaf ear. Indeed tliere is Uttle doubt 

 that they acquired their name from the redness of all the flesh that con- 

 stitutes part of head and face ; also that they are ofifshoots from the 

 Spangled Hamburghs; but we do not tolerato a red car in a Spangled 

 Hamburgh, nor, in our opinion, should such ever have a prize — certainly 

 not a first one. 



Continuous tse of Poultry Yard (C. ^.).— There is no objection to 

 your keeping fowls in the same yard for a succession of years, more 

 especially as they have a three-acre orchard to run in. With a ^iew to 

 profit solely, keep Cochin-China or Brahma Pootra pullets and a Dorking 

 cock. Have the floor of the hen-house covered with loose sand, rake off 

 the dung ever>' morning, and whitewash the interior once or twice 

 annually with a creamy mixture of chloride of lime and water. 



Clitheroe Poultry Show. — " I sent a i)en of Silver-laced Bantams to 

 CUtheroe Show, and received back a pen of Brown Red Game Bantams, 

 and would be glad if any one having received my Silver-laced instead of 

 his Game Bantams will \vrite to my address, or send them, when I 

 will retiuTi the birds which I have received in mistake.— S. J. Ashton 

 Mottram, CJwshirc." ' 



Ormskirk and Southport Poultry Show.— In the list of awards pub- 

 lished last week Mr. A. K. Wocjd, Bumside, Kendal, informs us that his 

 name is omitted as having taken the first prizes in the Golden-spangled 

 and Silver-pencillod Hamburgh classes, and a higli commendation in the 

 latter. The oniisoiun is that of the list which was forwarded to us. 



Beeb goisg Daily to the Sea (Husticus). -This superstition is wholly 

 without foundation. It is, however, very generally diffused throughout 

 the West of England. 



Draining Honey fro?i Cosib— Preparation of Wax {A New Bee-keeper 

 and nut a Farmer). — Full directions for draining the honey from combs, 

 and for rendering the latter into wax, are given in pages 28 and 29 of the 

 fifth eilitiun of " Bee-keeping for the Many," which may be obtained free 

 from tliis office for five stamps. 



Stewarton Hives— Mr. Eaglesham.— " In replying to a question 

 about Stewarton hives, in No. 2^7, you say, ' We have reason to beUeve 

 that Mr. Eaglesham is dead.' a statement which may do me considerable 

 injury, as I never, in any season, sent more hives to England than I have 

 done in tliis. It is only about three months since 1 advertised in The 

 Journal of Horticulture, and am at a loss to ku^w how you oame to 

 believe I was dead.— Willi aji Eaglesham." 



