536 



JOURNAL OF HOKTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAKDENEB. 



[ December 2G, 1865. 



is wofiilly diminished in numbers, and I quite apprehend to 

 be queenless, but, not being in a frame hive, I can only guess 

 at the matter, and suppose that some accident happened to 

 her July 15th, as I noticed a very great commotion among the 

 bees in the evening of that day, which did not wholly subside 

 till the 18th.— T. W. 



TEMPER.\TURE OF BEE-HIVES. 

 Having felt a considerable curiosity as to the temperature of 

 bee-hives, I last year commenced a register of the thermometer 

 in one stock, continuing my observations on two stocks during 

 the spring of the present year, having (as an extra inducement 

 for so doing) succeeded in getting my friend " T. W." to keep 

 me company with two of his hives. These observations were 

 made three times a-day — viz., at 8 a.m., 1.30 p.m., and 6.30 

 P.M. I had two thermometers in each of my stocks A and B, 

 one suspended in the centre, and the other placed at the back 

 window. '■ T. W." had only one at the back window of his 

 two stocks C and D, and as I fear it would be occupying too 

 much of your space to send a copy of the daily readings, I 

 have reduced them to monthly averages, and hand you a sum- 

 mary of the whole four stocks for the three months ending May. 

 The figures in every instance show the average difference in 

 temperature between the hive and the external air. The greatest 

 difference recorded on any day was in B on May 5, when the 

 thermometer in the centre of the hive showed 43', and at the 

 window 24° higher than the temperature of the outer air. 



DYSENTERY AMONG BEES. 



That dysentery arises from the bees retaining their fieces 

 too long will, I tliink, be admitted by most people who have 

 had much experience of the evil. Tlieir powers of retaining 

 them for a long time when circumstances are favourable are 

 very great, but they may be overtaxed, and, when this is the 

 case, excrements will be discharged within the hive. Long 

 before the capability of retention, however, is overcome, the 

 foundation of an almost incurable state may have been laid. 

 With the voidance of the fieces the evil may be only tem- 

 porarily at an end ; for bees afflicted with dysentery do not, on 

 obtaining relief to their distended abdomens, immediately 

 return to a completely healthy condition. If, after this, they 

 are compelled to continue within the hive for some length of 

 time, it will be found that many of them are swollen as before, 

 and loaded with a watery fluid, which will be opaque or trans- 

 parent, according to its greater or less consistency. In order, 

 therefore, to secure the safety and preservation of a stock 

 suffering from dysentery, it is absolutely necessary that the 

 bees be able to leave the hive at short intervals and evacuate. 

 If, by reason of cold inclement weather, this is impossible, the 

 hive, with abundance of food and thousands of bees in it, may 

 perish in a night. I have seen one or two nights of severe 

 frost exercise a fatal influence upon an unhealthy hive. 



With the cure prescribed by Dzierzon, as given in Mr. Wood- 

 bury's last interesting article, I am perfectly familiar, and have 

 several times put it in practice with results sometimes favour- 

 able and sometimes the reverse ; but, when practicable, I 

 would recommend the window against which the bees are in- 

 tended to fly to be moveable, and placed immediately in front 

 of the outer window of the room. The glass of the outer 

 window, even with a winter sun shining upon it, is often very 

 cold, so much so, as to torment the bees, and if they once fall 

 down asphyxiated, the cure is little better than the disease. 

 It is desirable, also, to have the room in which operations are 

 conducted heated by a fire, and, to save the carpet from dis- 

 charges, the space between the hive and the window, which 

 should be 2 or 3 yards, may be covered with newspapers. 



The causes of dysentery are very correctly stated to be any 

 circumstances which occasion such a consumption of food as 

 to overload the bees with fieces, which they cannot get parted 

 with. Long confinement will cause it, and so will impure air, 

 which excites the bees to begin ventilation, and they are thereby 

 thrown into unseasonable activity. Sudden changes of tem- 

 perature are also deleterious, for the moment the thermometer . 



makes any considerable rise within the hive, the hitherto in- 

 active inhabitants begin to consume food. Continued wet 

 weather in October, November, and the early part of Decem- 

 ber, with either a high temperature or one that keeps only a 

 few degrees above tlie freezing point, is very prejudicial, 

 especially if high winds prevail. Bees in an active state, from 

 whatever cause, necessarily consume food ; and, if prevented 

 by stress of weather from travelling beyond the limits of their 

 habitation, the results witnessed in dysentery must inevitably 

 follow. 



As prevention is better than cure, I would recommend that 

 winter stocks be neither fed nor disturbed in any way after the 

 middle of October, and that as soon as possible thereafter 

 they be equipped iu warm winter coverings. A sheltered 

 comer, played upon by the winter sun, is also a very good 

 location in this cold, imgenial, northern clime. When the 

 bees have gone to roost, and keen continued frost sets in, they 

 can retain their fieces with impunity for two or three months, 

 and in such weather the site of the apiary is of little conse- 

 quence ; but with frost and thaw frequently recurring, a nook 

 screened from wind, and lying towards the sun, is truly valu- 

 able.— K. S. 



As one who has suffered by dysentery in my apiary, I most 

 willingly offer to the readers of The .TornNAi. of Hohtk'Ulture, 

 what I have found to be most useful in removing it, or at least 

 staying its further progress. 



At the end of last February I received a hive of bees from 

 Germany, and when I gave them their liberty many could only 

 reach the entrance of the hive, where they voided their fieces. 

 Every morning I examined the hive, and found numbers dead 

 on the floor-board. I got ready a second floor-board, and every 

 morning lifted the hive off its board, and gave it a clean one, 

 taking the dirty one awaj- and washing it in boiling water and 

 soda made very strong. This I continued to do till tlie end of 

 March, feeding the bees during the interval, as they were short 

 of food, and cutting away the bottom of the combs they had 

 soiled by their excrement. April set in fine, and the queen began 

 laying very rapidly, but not till the inhabitants had dwindled 

 so low that there were scarcely enough left to rear the brood ; 

 however, they recruited so rapidly that the hive yielded more 

 honej' than I could have expected. 



I am of opinion that one of the causes of dysentery is the 

 long conflnement to which the inmates of many hives are 

 subjected in protracted winters, and in the case of my hive 

 there is not the least doubt, as it came from the continent ; 

 and, as Mr. Woodbury states, the winters are both long and 

 severe in Germany. I have been conversing with an old and 

 experienced German bee-keeper, who tells me that in Ger- 

 many, when the hives are attacked, nothing that can be done 

 will stop the disease, and nothing seems to do them so much 

 good as a change to mild weather. From my own experience, 

 I believe cleanliness to be essential to the bees, taking care to 

 remove all deposit about the hives. If I have a second visita- 

 tion of the disease, I will inform you of the result. — T. S. 



Late Pollf.x-gatherisg. — The weather to-day (Dec. 20th), 

 being very mild, although dull and sunless, the bees of all my 

 twenty-five stocks are showing in greater or less activity, and 

 into one in particular, which, for certain reasons, is watched 

 with peculiar interest, pollen is being freely carried. — A Devon- 

 SHir.E Bee-iojepek. 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



White Coxib (71. W.]. — The white srurfy appenrnnce on the cnmb nnd 

 fiice r)f your Hamburgh ben. is known as white comb. Rub the phice 

 with ii little sulphur ointment. 



Pigs and ForLXRY [J. Cocker). — A volume on the pig wr>« published in 

 the " Library of Useful Knowledge." Our " Poultry-kecpcrV Manual " is 

 now published, price T-;. iid., and can be had free by poet from our uffic<t 

 for four additional postaf^e stamps. 



Macaws (W. K. TI'.). — There are no Macaws found in Africa. All 

 Macaws, nurabcrinfi about ten different species, are natives of South 

 America. The cobuirs are scarlet and yellow, red and blue, blue nnd 

 yellow, and dark blue and black. The most valuable is the large blue 

 one, kno\^^l as the Maximilian. The Australian tVrass Paroquet breeds 

 freely in this country if properly managed, but it is preposterous to sup- 

 pose anything like the Canary. We know of no small foreign birds that 

 can be depended upon for breeding in cages in this country, nor are we 

 aware of any work published on the subject of breeding small foreigu 

 birds. 



