September 4, 1866. ] J0UBNAL OF HOBTICULTCBE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



193 



between these two extremes. Where, then, is the Uidipus who 

 oan expound this riddle for me t 



We all know that Dr. Gumming asserted that bees never 

 worked after four o'clock in the afternoon ; but our " Chamber 

 Bee-master " discovered that on very fine nights in June they 

 never lost a moment in sleep, but in double columns kept 

 marching out and in, and that they always " kept their neigh- 

 bours on the sword-hand, reversing the fashion which prevailed 

 in London when men wore weapons." As it would be im- 

 possible, however, for the bee "to persevere in such a course, 

 it occasionally takes a nap in the bells of flowers, where, if 

 particularly weary, it nestles all night, and one of its favourite 

 resting-places is the hollow of the scented geranium, or the 

 spotted cranesbill !" 



Seeking publicity in an Edinburgh magazine, and writing 

 professedly on the subject of " Bee-hive6," those manufactured 

 at Stewarton, and which have achieved so extensive a repu- 

 tation, are not only passed over in silence by our " Chamber Bee- 

 master," but we are told that, on the contrary, " people are be- 

 ginning, through attention to analogy, to prefer the hexagonal 

 shape, which is that of the cells of the comb." Now, it may 

 be remembered that Dr. Cumming declared Stewarton hives to 

 be hexagonal, and after stating that he had found them to 

 " answer best of any," drew from this fact the inference " that 

 the bees, who construct their cells in the form of hexagons, 

 prefer the house in which they work to be of the same shape." 

 On its being pointed out to him that these hives had eight 

 sides instead of six, he was unable to deny the fact, but, will- 

 ing to retract as little as possible, he still upheld the hexagon 

 as the best shape, although he could give no reason whatever 

 for this opinion beyond the purely imaginary one of a fancied 

 analogy. This, therefore, is the history of these hexagonal 

 hives, which having thus achieved notoriety only by a " fluke," 

 we are now told " people are beginning to prefer," and which 

 must perforce rapidly supersede the well-made and successful 

 Stewartons, when these latter are thus pointedly ignored in a 

 Scottish periodical by so unfailing an oracle. 



It seems, also, that we were far too hasty in rejecting the 

 Italian story of bees feeding on oil-cake, since it is here re- 

 produced, and, of course, under such sponsorship none can 

 any longer refuse to receive it. 



I have reserved to the last the inestimable suggestions of 

 " The Chamber Bee-master," which, if carefully and consis- 

 tently carried out, will doubtless raise apiculture to the highest 

 pitch of which it is capable. The first is, that cheap hives 

 should be made " with two storeys divided by a sliding roof," 

 so that " the bees might be admitted into the upper storey by 

 removing the slide as soon as they had filled tire lower." The 

 second is, that bee-keepers should dislodge the bees from their 

 habitations without sacrificing the lives of any of the inmates. 

 " This," we are told, " might be done by placing new hives at 

 a short distance from the old ones, and then introducing a pipe 

 into tLo latter, by means of which they might easily be smoked 

 out." The third is, that hives should be kept in niches formed 

 in walls "to hold twelve, twenty-four, or thirty-six hives, in 

 one, two, or three stages of twelve in each." 



I am aware that hard-headed and cold-blooded practical men 

 may urge that there is a plentiful lack of novelty about the 

 first suggestion, this being in some sort admitted and apolo- 

 gised for by the illustrious writer himself ; that the second is 

 impracticable as he describes it, and nnadvisable if accomplished 

 by any other means ; that the mode of keeping bees recom- 

 mended in the third is so clumsy and inconvenient as to have 

 become almost obsolete even in Devonshire itself ; and that the 

 entire contents of the paper are such as to prove that its author 

 possesses only the most superficial knowledge of his subject. 

 A plague on all such strictures ! say I. Having probed and 

 investigated nearly to the uttermost all the known facts, do we 

 not now want novelties in the natural history of the bee ? and 

 have we not here got them, in company with ancient stories 

 turned inside-out and vamped up. until, like the Jew's second- 

 hand garments, they look almost "bettersh dan new?'" — As 

 Old Bee-keepee. 



of a weak stock and always found a plurality of eggs in the 

 cells most irregularly laid. There were cells with one egg 

 certainly, but all about these there were others with two and 

 three eggs in them. What could havo been the cause of this 1 

 This stock has much improved of late. The queen is one year 

 old. — Edw. Fairhrothee. 



[A common queen having had intercourse with Ligurians 

 produces a mixed progeny, some nearly as handsome as pure 

 Italians, many of the ordinary kind, and some inteimediate 

 between the two. A prolific queen at the head of a weak stock 

 frequently, or we might even say generally, lays a plurality of 

 eggs in many of the cells, an abnormal condition of things 

 which ceases as soon as the colony becomes prosperous and 

 extends its combs sufficiently to admit of its deriving the full 

 advantage from her marvellous reproductive powers.] 



LIGUKIANISED BEES— PLURALITY OF EGGS. 



This fine day I observe that many young bees leave the hive, 

 t*it very few indeed, comparatively, "marked like those I sent 

 you. Tnd differing in no respect that I can see from the com- 

 mon bet. Is it possible that the queen breeds both kinds ? 



In the spii»(j of this year, I frequently examined the combs 



UNITING AND FEEDING BEES. 



I wish to take away all the honey of seven hives, and to 

 unite four swarms together, and three swarms together. Will 

 you state the process, the best time of day, and in what place, 

 as fully as time and space will admit ? If I keep the troughs 

 of the hives always full of sugar, are the bees likely to survive 

 the winter? and what quantity of beer or water should be 

 mixed with 1 lb. of sugar, and ought it to be boiled ? If the 

 bees have not made enough honey from the supply of sugar by 

 the time the cold weather sets in, would it influence their work- 

 ing to keep them in a greenhouse at a temperature of from 

 50° to 60° ? Will the bees interfere with you while performing 

 the operation ? What is the best site for bees in winter ?— W. 

 Bradley, Bromley Road, Bcclccnham, Kent. 



[If you intend putting your expelled bees into frame hives 

 the operation is easy and success nearly certain. Drive the 

 bees during the forenoon of a fine day into common hives, in 

 the manner described in page 59 of the fifth edition of "Bee- 

 keeping for the Many," and it may be as well to drive the first 

 four into four different hives, which should for the time be put 

 in their places on the old stands. The deserted hives should 

 be conveyed in-doors, one by one. as soon as their inhabitants 

 are expelled, the combs cut out, and any stragglers that remain 

 be returned to their brethren. When all four have been 

 operated on, the combs should be carefully dissected, every 

 piece of brood or pollen-laden comb being cut out in a square 

 or other available form, matched together, and fitted into frames, 

 wherein they must be temporarily fastened by means of zinc 

 or tin clips, wire, slips of wood and tacks, or any other means 

 which may occur to you. There will probably be quite suffi- 

 cient of what would otherwise be waste comb to fill a complete 

 set of frames, which should be put into a hive, and this hive 

 should be surmounted by an empty one of the same size, from 

 which the frames and top board have been removed, placed 

 between it and the crown-board. Convey the whole to its stand 

 in the apiary (which should be as nearly as possible in the 

 centre of the space previously occupied by the four hives), and 

 knock the clusters of bees out of these one after the other as 

 rapidly as possible into the upper hive and on the top of the 

 frames of the lower one, which must be exposed by removing 

 the crown-board. Beplace this latter the instant the last lot 

 of bees is knocked out, and leave them to settle matters until 

 the next day but one, when the top hive and all, or nearly all, 

 the artificial supports to the oombs may be removed. If any 

 of the latter appear unsafe, their supports should be left until 

 the day following, when all are pretty sure to be safe. This 

 operation may be repeated in a day or two with the remaining 

 three hives. 'We have framed these instructions on the hypo- 

 thesis that the bees are your own, and on your own premises. 

 If they are at a distance you may drive them one day, tie them 

 up in cloths and take them home with the brood-combs (which 

 are of course nearly valueless to their owners, but for which 

 you had better make a trifling money payment rather than 

 forego them), in the evening, placing these latter in a warm 

 room (say the kitchen), for the night, and complete the opera- 

 tion next morning. If you manage matters properly there is 

 no danger whatever from the bees. 



Use no feeding-trough, but an inverted pickle-bottle for each 

 of your newly-formed stocks, which fill every evening until 

 they have stored sufficient food to last them through winter, 

 during which season no feeding should be attempted. We use 

 no beer, but lump sugar and water, in the proportion of 3 lbs. 

 of the former to 2 lbs. of tho latter, and boiled a minute or 



