178 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



[ Anguat 26, 1669. 



we watoh the German etooka antil the dronea have ceaeed their 

 flight. As soon as thin occurs we restore the hives containing 

 the Italian qneens and drones to their accustomed stands, and 

 set them at liberty, after giving to each a capful of liquid honey. 

 The queen and drones being ardent, and having been unable to 

 fly for days, the bees excited by the honey and their previous 

 confinement become so eager after flight, that all play as if 

 mad, and fertilisation follows. We must, however, be careful 

 to return to the cellar in the evening every colony the queen 

 of which has not been seen to return with the signs of a suc- 

 oeasful flight, and repeat the process until it is certain that the 

 desired result has been obtained. This is essential, because it 

 is well known that under ordinary circumstances some queens 

 take flight several times before they succeed in meeting with a 

 drone." 



Dr. Preuss proposes still further to control the queen, and 

 hia method may, perhaps, bo considered an improvement on 

 the Kiihler-Dathe process. ■ lie advises imprisoning the young 

 queen on the fourth or fifth day of her existence, either under 

 a wire pipe-cover, or by dividing off a part of the hive by means 

 of a wire gauze partition, and then in the afternoon of the 

 eighth or ninth day of her existence, and after the common 

 drones have ceased to fly abroad, take out one or two combs 

 with pure drones on tbem, stand them in the neighbourhood 

 of the queen's hive, and then releas-ing her on a comb, rest it 

 against the front of her hive, and permit her to take wing from 

 it. He states that " as soon as the queen perceives the drones 

 buzzing about her, she usually in less than r minute soars into 

 the air, whence in from a quarter of an hour to an hour she 

 returns fertilised to the hive, in order after three days to com- 

 mence egg-laying." The combs are, of course, returned to their 

 respective hives when the queen and drones have taken flight ; 

 and if the operation be not at once successful, the queen must 

 be again imprisoned, and the process repeated on subsequent 

 days until the desired result be attained.* 



Mr. Kohler also describes another method which may be 

 valuable where common hives are in use, and by which, as he 

 expresses it, he obtains natural ' swarms by an artificial 

 process, and can at the same time with one good Ligurian 

 stock, Italianise a dozen colonies with the least possible 

 trouble. The process is as follows : — " We take a hive from 

 which a swarm has just issued, and put it in the place of 

 another very populous colony. After nine days, by means of 

 the population received from the removed hive, it will certainly 

 swarm again. If it is now shifted to the stand of another 

 strong stock, it will, after two or three days, swarm again. We 

 continue this process as long as we can hear queens piping in 

 the hive of an evening. Under favourable circumstances, we 

 may in this way obtain ten or twelve swarms, as the first hive 

 supplies the queens and the others the bees. If, therefore, 

 we have one or two Italian stocks, and feed tbem well early in 

 the spring — say from the 20lh of March, especially if they are 

 well supplied with pollen, we may be sure that these hives will 

 swarm first. By transposing them in this way with German 

 stocks we shall obtain swarms with Italian queens and German 

 bees."t — A Devonshire Bee-keefeh. 



(To be continaed.) 



REMOMNG BEES TO THE MOORS IN HOT 

 WEATHER. 



I was sorry to see, in page 136, that " B." had been so un- 

 fortunate as to lose his bees ia removing them to the heather. 

 If he had followed ray instructions in the Journal of July 2l3t, 

 and September Ist, 18(J3. he would not have had to deplore the 

 death of his bees ; but they would have been now repaying him 

 for taking them to such luxuriant pastures, where hundreds 

 of tons of honey and wax are annually lost to the nation from 

 want of collectors. — William Carr, 



•J*"' Pi'^'^ss's article appeared in externa in Ko. 425 of " oar Journal." 

 + The text ol Mr. Kohler'a article may be referred to in No. 886 of " oar 

 Journal.'' 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Sickle Feather in Tail of a Brahma Pootra (H, L.).— Tbft feather 

 you Bent is not a disqualification. It oftou arisog from ago. The older 

 the cock the longer and lnr|,ier the tail, and it often comes white at the 

 points. Nothing jostifies puHinR out a tail. If the birds are properly 

 judged tampering is sure to bo detected, and that is more fjtal than any 

 excess of feather. 



Sn.yER-spAN.-iLFD Hambcrghs DABKco>rBED (C. P.).— The nature of 

 the diet you arc giving your birdsis unsatisfactory. Give them an entire 

 cbange. Withdraw for a time all the maize, rice meal, grains, Ac. and give 



thorn good barley meal made into dongh, and thrown down to them on 

 the ground. If the change shitutd produce no clTiCt in appearance, tr; 

 them with one meal a-day of stale broad soaked in ale. 



Fowls Dvtno {BuUo). — We imagine yoar fowls have poison among the 

 refuse wheat. You describe the symptoms of it. It is muro than pro- 

 babto some of it has boon dressed wltli arsenio for sowing. There iB 

 nothing romarkAblo about the stones ; they are tfao griudors thnt onablo 

 the fowl to digest the fond. When found in largo nnoiburs they aro on 

 indioalion of iudigoslion or diaomfort. Wheal has a tondoncy to swell 

 In the orop, and i\^ noon ae it ia nnconifortably diHtondtd the patient fllee 

 to the water and drinks to excess; this canses the wheat to swell more, 

 and then by iu^tinct the bird picks np stont-s in tbc vain hnpo of getting 

 rid of the discomfort in a natural way. All those symptoms would be 

 aggravated tenfold if there were any arsenic. It would cnuse intcDEO 

 thirst and huriiiug heat. If the intestlnos are ex«miucd there will pro- 

 bably ho briglit retl spott ^ilwayain a bleL-ding state, and these will iiccoont 

 fur ihe p;iin the birds sufl'er. Discontinue the "refuse wheat;" feed on 

 good nut or barU^y meal mixed with milk; give them lettuces that have 

 run to seed ; withhold all other food save that which they pick np. I! 

 you have nnysovoro castjs now, shut up the birds, purge freely with a 

 table spoonful of castor-oil every day for three days, give milk to drink* 

 and if nocoflsary administer it with a syringe; afterwords give Baily'B 

 pills, and adopt a nourishing and slightly stimulating diet, 



FEATiiER-EiTrxo Fowf.s (J. O. iV.*.— Wc are nfraid wo can tell yon ol 

 no plan by which you can prevent tho French fowls from ea'ingeach 

 other's feathers, if they aro at all confined. Wo do not find tbey do it 

 when at liberty. Wo have triod all wo know in medicine and food withont 

 success. 



Rearing Younq Pheasants (Younrj Countryman). — Yon will have no 

 difficulty whatever in keeping your Pboasants. They have arrived at an 

 ago when they cause no trouble. You must enelope a place, on grass il 

 possible, about SO feet by HO. with hurdles made of split fir or other wood. 

 Tho hurdles should be H feet high, and the Inths forming Ihem 1 inch 

 apart. They should be faetencd to upright poles, to which they should be 

 attached. This is all that is necessary, as the birds require no shelter ol 

 any kind, and In such a place ton Pheasants m;iy be kept as long as it is 

 wishfd. Their food should be barley. It is nccf-asary to out ore wing 

 before thoy are put in such a pen ; and as it may bo desired to turn somd 

 out, aud to keep in others, you should select the l^e^it and strongest, cnt 

 their wings, and put tbem in. Let tho others fly away as i-oon as thej 

 will. As a rule, they take to roo><ting iu the hedges, thry go higher and 

 higher till they reach the trees; in the same way they become lesB 

 punctual at feeding tirao. till they absent themselves altogether. If yon 

 keep up only four birds you will require a pen only half the size of that 

 we have mentioned. You may change their food at times by giving Indian 

 corn or dough made of barleymeal, and slaked with milk or water. They 

 should havG fresh water always by them. There i« nn excellent work OD 

 Pheasants, published by Daily, Mount Street, price 1*. 



GmNEA FowT.s (O. 3/cK).— Wo do not in England know go much of 

 Guinea Fowls as we should. Much of our treatment of them is guess- 

 work. It is believed, and we believe, they are monogamous, yet a perBOQ 

 whom we can trust, says, he keeps a cock and four hens, and nil the eggs 

 are good. We believe they pair as strictly as Partridges. It is difflcmt 

 to tell the sex. We tried to keep pairs, but we never did, and tho eggs 

 were very bad. Wo were once shooting on a wild track, where no honsa 

 wfts in sight, and there was none within a quarter of a mile. The pointer 

 stood iu a patch of gorse. It was long before we could find the csose; 

 when we did, we sprang a Guinea Fowl ; she had forty-lhrce eggs under 

 her. None of them had been sat upon. When the hen wants to sit, eho 

 will go to the eggs and remain there. Wo have recounted the above 

 anecdote only to show how prone they are to steal their ncets, and it is 

 more than likely your hen has a corner somewhere ready furnished. 



YouNo Pigeons Diseased (Pirycon).— The enu^^os of roup are cold and 

 damp, and what are similar— draughts, and tho cure is wnrmth. Con- 

 sidering the season is summer, we doubt if the complnnt is roup, bnt 

 rather canker, for the cure of which in young Pigeons we quote from a 

 very old author:— "Take a half-pint phial and fill it three-parts full of 

 the boi' J egar, and drop into it as many drops of spirit of vitriol as 

 will ma'vo it sufficiently pungent, which may bo ascertained by trying it 

 on the tongue a few times; sweeten it with a little honey, which will 

 make it adhere to the throat, shake them well together, and take a 

 feather and anoint the inside of the throat of the bird afl'octed two or 

 three times a-d^y. and in general a cure will bo accomplished ; hang the 

 phial up in the loft where it will be ready for fatnro oc asions, aside not 

 perceive that the specific loses its virtue by keeping." 



Australian Ground Parrakeet {Old .Sii^s^rriftrr).— Canary Feed and 

 dry crumbled bread appear to suit this bird best. In constipation we 

 should try bread and milk if the bird would eat it. or give four drops ol 

 castor oU. Wo should advise trying the bird with various kinds of Xood 

 iu order to save it. 



Books U. B. B. .V.).—" Profitable Bee-keeping," by the Rev. P. V. M. 

 Filleul, M.A., is published by tho Societv for Promoting Christian Know- 

 ledge, and may be obtained through anv bookseller. 



Black Stock Becoming Liourianised (li. K ) —There Pcems no doubt 

 that I ho young queen of the whilom bbiek colony has mated with a Li- 

 gurian drone, wbich causes her to produce a mixed progeny. 



DaiviSG AND Uniting (O. Sco/()-— Wo should k.n-p the stock hive and 

 the second swarm if, as is most probably the case, tho latter has filled its 

 hive with comb. You will thus secure a harvest of fine honey in new 

 combs, and may hope to leave young qnctns at the head of tbe two re- 

 maining colonies. It is well to remove one queen if it can be managed, 

 preserving the vounger or the larger of the two. The mode of uniting 

 which you describe often answers completely, bnt on tho other hand it 

 sometimes fails altogether. The best plan is to drive both lota of bees 

 into an empty hive, and then induct them into tho one which they are 

 permanently to occupy. You will find much valuable information on this 

 and other points in Mr. Woodbury's articles on "Utilising and Uniting 

 Condemned Bees," which appeared in Nos. 356, 857. 358, and 369 of onr 

 new series. Tho honey harvest ceases in onr locality as %o:^T^ as the ftno 

 weather breaks up in July, and if vou can utilise the nnhatcheu brood 

 perhaps this is the best time for" uniting. If not, you must balance 

 matters as host you can between the de?truction of brood and the possible 

 waste of honey until, perhaps, about the end of September, when breeding 

 comes nearly to a standstill. 



