July 17, 18CG. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



55 



a nucleus, and wishing to obtain the young queen, only just 

 matured, (or another hive, and at the same time compel the 

 swarm to return home, I turned up tho hivo in which the 

 swarm was, but after looking about for sonio timo, as the queen 

 did not turn up, I began to examine the mass in detail, and 

 observing a rather dense cluster near the centre, rolled it out, 

 and found, as I expected, that the young queen was incarcerated, 

 exactly as in the previous instance. I removed her assailants 

 one by one, and was glad to find the queen uninjured, and I 

 succeeded in introducing her to another nucleus, which had 

 either destroyed or lo3t its own queen some time before. The 

 bees soon returned home, proving that they had not a more 

 favoured monarch left with them. I have lost several young 

 queens this season, but only one in 1865. 



How is it possible to account for this apparent perversion of 

 instinct ? Tho weather is fine, and honey most abundant, and 

 yet my bees have in several instances destroyed young queens 

 which they themselves have reared and tended. — J. E. B. 



APIARIANS BEWARE ! 

 Tite foes of your favourites are increasing. Sparrows as 

 well as tomtits are arrayed against you, and last, though not 

 least, the cuckoo. The parish schoolmaster of Lochmaben 

 has had a whole hive of bees destroyed in little more than one 

 day by a cuckoo, which was encouraged to visit his garden ; and 

 two or three other hives in the vicinity have been ruined by 

 the same enemy, so I am assured. That eminent naturalist 

 Sir William Jardine believes tho cuckoo will eat bees, and has 

 sent an account of the above-mentioned facts to the " Science 

 Gossip Journal." Now, without calling in question the veracity 

 of any person, I beg to state as my opinion, that neither the 

 sparrow nor the cuckoo is an enemy of the bee. I imagine tho 

 Lochmaben hives perished by famine, and that the dying bees 

 were simply appropriated as legitimate food by the cuckoo. 

 Sparrows abound in my apiary, and though they may occasion- 

 ally destroy a bee, their chief employment consists in catching 

 flies that torment the hives. 



If " A Bi.ACKnEATH'AN " will take the trouble of opening the 

 stomachs of the progeny of apicidal sparrows, I am convinced 

 he will desist from the war of extermination which he has 

 begun to wage on a class of birds that do much good and little 

 injury in the garden.— R. S. 



UNITING BEES— MANY QUESTIONS. 



Will you inform me as to the course I ought to have 

 pursued with my bees? On Saturday, the 7th inst., those in 

 a Neighbour's hive swarmed for a second time, not having 

 taken to the supers put on. I tried to unite the swarm with 

 a first swarm from a common straw hive, and which was in a 

 ten-bar hive (they swarmed exactly two weeks before the others) ; 

 but the bees in the bar hive have killed all the others. 



The mode in which we endeavoured to unite the swarms was 

 as follows : — On Saturday night, about a quarter to ten o'clock 

 (as recommended in the " Bee Manual "), an hour and a half 

 after sunset, we took the new swarm, and, having spread a 

 cloth on the ground, knocked the bees out on the cloth, and 

 then began looking for the queen, but as we could not find her, 

 we took the bar hive, and leaving its floor-board behind, put it 

 on the top of the bees on the cloth. We then left thera to 

 rise into the hive, and join the other bees ; and this we expected 

 they would do. The bar hive has three bars full of comb, and 

 partly sealed. Then in the morning, about a quarter to four 

 o'clock, we returned the bar hive to the floor-board and to the 

 stand, but when we came to look at the cloth there seemed to 

 be as many bees under where the hive had stood as the night 

 before ; so we put them on the floor-board, and fastened the 

 hive down ; but all the day (Sunday) the inmates were carrying 

 out bees either dead or alive, and the ground was covered with 

 the dead and dying. I forgot to state that we found the queen 

 in the morning, after we had removed most of the bees to 

 the floor-board. 



Did I pursue the right course in looking for the queen ? and 

 would the union have been all right if I had found her on the 

 Saturday evening? If not, what reason do you assign for the 

 bees killing the new swarm? We have the queen under a 

 glass, will it be of any use to keep her ? Should covers to 

 hives be of a light or a dark colour? Why did not the bees in 

 the Neighbour's hive take to the supers ? Do you think, as I 

 imagine, that we put on the supers rather too early ? The bees, 



however, went up into them, and filled them, but did no work ; 

 but when the bees swarmed the first time they left them quite 

 empty, and I found a little bit of comb at the bottom of each 

 glass, of which thero wero three. Are Ligurian queens de- 

 sirable ? Could I take tho honey from two common straw 

 hives, and put the bees in a bar hive, adding to them a swarm 

 which came off to-day and another which I expect soon ? and 

 when would be the right timo to do so ? I do not like killing 

 the bees to take the honey. Would it bo well to add any more 

 bees to the swarm in tho bar hivo: a second swarm, or one lot 

 of the old bees — that is, a swarm of last year ? One of the 

 straw hives has swarmed twice, and the other once, and this 

 is the one that I expect will again. I have three or four 

 time3 had to straighten the eomb on the bars, how is this 

 to be obviated, for the bees do not seem to care about build- 

 ing straight ? Of course when I see to it I am attacked ac- 

 cordingly. I weighed the bar hive before I tried to unite the 

 swarm, and it had gained nothing, so that I conclude the 

 inmates must have killed all the new comers. Is it necessary 

 in catching a swarm of bees to smear the insido of the hiva 

 with syrup of some sort ? Have the Neighbour's cottage hives 

 enough ventilation, for the top only ventilates tho supers? 

 Do bees dislike large glass windows in the sides of their hives, 

 with a door to keep the light out ? How far do bees generally 

 go to fetch honey ? Does taking out tho bars to look at them 

 injure the young bees ? and how long does it take to hatch out 

 brood ? Will this year's swarms have any young bees before 

 autumn ? Is there more than one sort of common bee ? I do 

 not mean drones but workers, for some hives seem to havo 

 larger bees than others. — G. J. 

 P.S. — Do any drones go off with second and third swarms ? 

 [We can scarcely tell why the attempted union turned out 

 so complete a failure. Another time and under apparently 

 precisely similar circumstances you may be equally successful. 

 The use of a little smoke, and sprinkling both lots of bees with 

 syrup scented by the addition of a little peppermint water 

 would render future success more probable. The queen of a 

 second swarm not being fertilised would be of little use to an 

 expert, to you she is of no value whatever. A light colour is 

 the best for hive covers. If the supers had been furnished with 

 some pieces of clean comb the bees would have been more likely 

 to have taken to them. We have no doubt as to the superiority 

 of Ligurian queens. The best time for driving the bees and 

 taking the honey from your two common hives would be three 

 weeks after the issue of the first swarm in each case, as all the 

 brood from the old queen (with the exception, perhaps, of a few 

 drones) would then be hatched out, whilst the young queen 

 would scarcely have commenced egg-laying. If the inhabi- 

 tants of the two hives do not form a sufficient population, yon 

 may add a swarm, or perhaps we should rather say, add them 

 to a swarm, as the best way wonld probably be to drive them at 

 once from their own hives up into that containing tho swarm. 

 We always superintend tho formation of combs ourselves by 

 examining them occasionally whilst in progress, and correcting 

 irregularities as they arise. We should not at this time at- 

 tempt to add more bees to the hive which has evinced so de- 

 cided a disinclination to fraternise with the reinforcement yon 

 have already offered to it. Smearing tho inside of hives with 

 honey or syrup of any kind is, we believe, quite unnecessary. 

 Extra ventilation when necessary may be given to storified 

 hives by wedging up the supers about the eighth of an inch, as 

 well as by raising the front of the hive itself a little from its 

 floor-board. Large windows are great evils in bee-hives from 

 their tendency to promote the condensation of internal mois- 

 ture. We believe from a mile to a mile and a half to be about 

 the limit of the profitable flight of the bee. Workers mature 

 in about twenty-one days, and a hive containing a swarm of 

 this season will be left in the autumn almost entirely in the 

 possession of young bees bred since it was tenanted. There is 

 but one kind of hive bee indigenous in this country ; any 

 variation in the size of workers is, therefore, accidental. Drones 

 generally accompany both second and third swarms.] 



SUrERSTITIONS ABOUT BEES. 

 Some time ago a man brought a second swarm of bees to 

 my employer's apiary. When about to leave them he tapped 

 the hive and said, "Bees ! bees ! I have brought you to work 

 for a new master ; be industrious." I asked him if he thought 

 the bees could understand him, and he said he always did it ; 



