November 4, 1869. ] 



JOUENAL OF HORTICULTUBE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEK. 



371 



has monlted nearly white, one of twenty, all the leat bias k 

 We know this is common, hot we cannot explain it. 



We are not prepared to say yotur treatment of the hen was 

 the right one ; nor do we believe in a recurrence of the same 

 good fortune if you repeated the treatment. In our opinion a 

 feather dipped in oil, and introduced till the passage was en- 

 tirely lubricated, would be quite as efiectual, and less dangerous. 

 We once threw away a Spanish hen for dead. She was thrown 

 on a dunghill, and partly covered. She was alive and better 

 the next morning, lived to make one of a cup pen, and was 

 sold for £10.] 



AUCTION AT THE BIRinNGHAM POULTRY 



EXHIBITION. 



I BEG to indorse all that Mr. Henry Leach says with regard 

 to the day fixed for the sale by auction of birds at Bingley Hall. 

 Monday is a most inconvenient, not to say impolitic, day for 

 the sale. Many cannot, and I am thankful to say if they could 

 will not, travel on Sunday, and consequently are entirely pre- 

 vented from being present at the sale ; and if they do manage 

 to arrive in Birmingham by eleven or twelve o'clock, what time 

 and opportunity are afforded them of looking over the birds ? 

 None whatever ; and no one really caring for good poultry will 

 " buy a pig in a poke " in this manner. No. Let the Council 

 fix on Tuesday as their day of sale ; then every one wUl have 

 the Monday for the inspection of the birds, all will be able to 

 attend the sale in person or by proxy, the competition must 

 necessarily be greater, and funds accrue to the Society. Should 

 answer be made that many are in Birmingham on the Monday 

 who do not remain till Tuesday, and therefore would not be at 

 the sale on the latter day, I would say, Let them entrust their 

 commissions to the obliging auctioneer, who will faithfully 

 execute them. — A. K. C. 



Permit me to endorse the opinion expressed by Mr. H, P. 

 Leach, that the time and day fixed by the Birmingham Poultry 

 Show Committee for the sale of birds are most Inconvenient 

 to persons anxious to attend, and living some miles from that 

 town. Many, I think, like myself and Mr. Leach, may not wish 

 to be in Birmingham on the Satturday, or to be compelled to 

 travel there by rail on the Sunday. Thus, there must be per- 

 sons who will be prevented from attending this sale by these 

 circumstances only, who would otherwise be present at it. 

 This appears to me a positive injury to the sale, and the owners 

 of birds, as well as a Boorce of disappointment to likely pnr- 

 ehasers. 



If others think with Mr. Leach and myself, I hope they will 

 express their opinion in your columns, and thereby endeavour 

 to obtain one day's postponement of the sale by the Birmingham 

 Committee. — Gloocestershibe. 



There can be no doubt that the proposed alteration of time 

 for holding the poultry sale at Bingley Hall would be hailed 

 with great satisfaction by a large number of exhibitors residing, 

 like myself, at a distance, and who cannot under the present 

 arrangements be present at that sale. There are many whose 

 commercial engagements prevent their leaving home on the 

 Saturday, and who would conscientiously object to travelling on 

 Sunday ; and even where these obstacles do not exist, there are 

 the expense and the inconvenience of being in lodgings up to 

 the morning, which quite preclude their attendance at the sale. 

 As for those who, like myself, have official duties to fulfil on the 

 Sunday, it is quite useless to entertain a wish to attend the sale, 

 as there is nopossibility of reaching Birmingham on the Monday 

 till the afternoon. Let the sale take place, say at 4 o'clock on 

 the Monday afternoon, or on the Tuesday morning, and it 

 would afford all who are now unavoidably excluded, a fair op- 

 portunity of being present. — J. Ellis, Bracknell, Berks. 



SPURIOUS HONEY— STRAW versus WOODEN 

 HIVES. 



I THINK all agree that the practice of feeding bees with 

 sugar for the purpose of filling supers, and afterwards selling 

 or exhibiting them as supers of honey, is dishonest, and should 

 be discouraged. That Mr. Pettigrew should have mentioned 

 the class of hive, from which the supers he detected as filled only 

 with sugar and water had been taken, is very unfortunate, as 

 I quite agree with " A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper" " that it is 

 much better to let sleeping dogs lie," especially when their 

 bark is so discordant ; but that Mr. Pettigcew cannot detect I 



sugar from honey after tasting it, is ridiculous. I may remark 

 that he this year took to the heather upwards of fifty hivef, 

 and that, I believe, he secures on an average about 500 lbs. of 

 honey annually, and this is done without intentionally killing a 

 bee. He has this year filled five glass supers weighing 13 lbs. 

 each, and one straw super weighing 22 lbs. On returning from 

 the moors I assisted him to weigh three hives; one a snarm 

 of 1868, weighed 70 lbs. ; the first swarm from it this year 

 weighed SO lbs., and the second swarm 40 lbs., making 190 lbs. 

 from one hive this season ; this, of course, is exceptionally 

 good for this locality. I myself am an enthusiast in bees, and 

 Uving near Mr. Pettigrew, these facts came to my knowledge, 

 and I merely mention them that those of your readers who are 

 not fortunate in knowing Mr. Pettigrew, may be assured that 

 he is no "novice passing his opinion on honey." 



Respecting the Stewarton hives, they are, probably, as good 

 as any other made of wood. I commenced with five made on 

 Mr. Tegetmeier'8 plan, and I do not think there are any better ; 

 but I soon found that the fault lay not in the construction of 

 the hive, but in the material it was made of. I found that in 

 cold weather the wood on the inside of the hive was covered 

 with condensed moisture ; the bar frames, to a great extent, 

 kept the combs from contact with it, still the stagnant moisture 

 caused them to mould and discolour. I afterwards adopted a 

 remedy which your readers using wooden hives would do well 

 to follow ; I obtained some boiler felt — a very excellent non- 

 conductor of heat, and covered the outside of the hive with 

 it ; any other non-conductor which will prevent the hive from 

 being influenced by the temperature of the outside atmosphere, 

 will do. This covering is as essential to keep out the heat in 

 summer as the cold in winter. 



Now, we Manchester men prefer the article which gives the 

 largest and best result with the least outlay of cost and trouble, 

 and I found that with good straw hives I could do almost 

 everything which could be done with the most elaborate, and 

 that the bees did much better in them than in the unprotected 

 wood. Now, these straw hives cost me about 3s. each ; they 

 are 16 inches wide and 12 inches deep, and are patterns of 

 good workmanship. I have them made with a crown of wood 

 6 inches in diameter, worked in the straw, with a 3-inch hole 

 bored in the centre of it. This is fitted with a ping or bung, 

 and on this top I can set a super made of glass, straw, or wood, 

 taking care if it is of glass or wood, to wrap it carefully round 

 with woollen material. 



I do not think any of your readers will be led away with the 

 " Lanarkshire Bee-kbepek's " assertion, that " doubtless the 

 shape and material have very much to do with the quality of 

 honey collected," and they will find that whether the super is of 

 glass, wood, or straw, the honey stored in it will be precisely 

 the same ; but as regards quantity, the bees prefer the straw, 

 next the wood, and last of all the glass, though the appearance 

 of the glass is prettiest. 



I also do not agree with " Lanarkshire Bee-keeper's " asser- 

 tion that "a good judge of honey knows honey and comb with- 

 out tasting it." The honey is collected from so many kinds of 

 flowers, the colour and consistency varying in each case, that 

 it is impossible to tell by the eye alone. Also, unlike his, my 

 experience shows me that even in the height of the honey 

 harvest, my bees will take either syrup made of sugar and 

 water, or honey, if placed where they can get to it, in prefer- 

 ence to collecting it from the flowers in the fields ; indeed, I 

 always assist my new swarms by giving them a couple of 

 pounds of lump sugar dissolved in a pint of water. By this 

 means they make comb faster than if compelled to seek their 

 food, thus providing the queen with cells in which to deposit 

 her eggs, which would otherwise be lost, and getting out a lot 

 of brood earlier than they otherwise would do. 



In conclusion, the stronger the stock, the more workers there 

 are, the more honey there will be collected ; cnnsequently do 

 not use small hives : and the material best adapted to resist 

 changes of temperature is the best to make them of ; this, in 

 my opinion, is straw. I place a small cushion filled with bay 

 on the top to cover the wooden crown, and thatch the whole 

 neatly with straw, thus keeping off the wet, and giving my 

 apiary a neat appearance. — A Manchester Man. 



CONFLICTING OPINIONS ON BEE-KEEPING. 



I AM anxious to begin bee-keeping, but am greatly puzzled by 



the conflietini^advice given in books. Inthe Times" Bee Uepper," 



the author fnys, that bee-houses are n posiiive necessity, no 



matter how ill-constructed they aie so long as you have them. 



