December 23, 1869. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



513 



oxoeseively, and t'ueEe, as a rule, do not care to fly loug ; others 

 tumble less frequently, and are fonder of flying. When I want 

 to have very lofty soaring, I do not allow the excessive tum- 

 blers to take part in the excursion. In this case the birds 

 rise to a great height, especially if there is a clear sky, and 

 not much wind. Tlie length of time Tumblers will remain at 

 the extraordinary height to which they frequently rise seems 

 to me to depend, without going into the consideration of that 

 accumulative disposition and power which we call breed, on 

 the weather, the way they are allowed to take exercise, food, 

 the place in which they are kept, and the humour they happen 

 to be in when allowed to leave their loft, for the best treatment 

 oennot insure their flying equally well at all times. 



My birds have never had any special attention further than 

 seeing that they had clean water, good ventilation, good tares, 

 plenty of grit, a lump of salt, and a bath now and then. In 

 the summer I frequently give them their liberty all day, and 

 though this ia contrary to rule, I find they will often fly quite 

 as high and as long as when they are confined for a great part 

 of the day. 



In colour my birds are mostly splashed — black-splashed, 

 cinnamon-splashed, with rarely a whole-coloured bird ; indeed, 

 I do not recollect ever having a high flyer whole-coloured, 

 though I have had plenty of low-flying specimens. Colour is, 

 however, so very accidental, to use an unscienlifio word, that 

 I should not be surprised to see any colour from my stock 

 of birds. 



I doubt not " Beadef. " would find good birds in Manchester, 

 Macclesfield, or Chester ; bat if I might be pardoned foroflfer- 

 ing a little gratuitous advice in the matter, I should say, Do not 

 buy from hearsay, but see the birds do what you want them to 

 do. In matters of " fancy " a person is so often infatuated 

 himself, that there is no wonder he should misrepresent. — 

 Old Bob Ridley. 



APIARIAN NOTES. 



LiGUEiAsisiNG. — All my attempts to establish the Italian 

 race in my apiary have resulted in total failure. I commenced 

 the year with five stocks, two with pure, one with a " doubtful," 

 and two with black queens ; I received a very fine queen from 

 Mr. Woodbury in November, 1868, and although it was very 

 cold and frosty at the time, I managed to introduce her to a 

 good stock safely, and was pleased to find on the first day I 

 could venture to open the hive afterwards that she had com- 

 menced egg-laying, even at that inclement season. 



In January the weather was very mild, primroses in bloom 

 on the 17th, and crocuses on the 29th. In February the 

 weather was more like April, and on the 4th and .5th the bees 

 were out in droves, and I observed pollen carried in for the 

 first time. 1 found only a handful of bees in No. C ; the queen, 

 a pure one, was alive but very weak. I put in a bar of comb 

 from a black stock with the adhering bees to strengthen them, 

 but they did not seem to like the Italian queen, and next day I 

 found her on the ground in front of the hive. I placed her on 

 a comb amongst the bees, but they paid no attention to her, 

 and the stock soon perished. " Fearing all was not right with 

 the stock to which I had joined the Italian queen in November, 

 I took oft the top, and was agreeably surprised to find the bees 

 busy rearing young. Many Ligurians had been bred since 

 the queen's arrival, some were cutting their way out of the 

 combs, and the queen was in splendid condition, and such a 

 tine one ! " So I wrote at the time, but, alas 1 how soon a 

 change for the worse came over them. After the fine and mild 

 weather of February, March set in cold and winterly, and all 

 the stocks which seemed prosperous at the beginning proved 

 to be sadly decimated and weakened at the end. Dysentery 

 Bet in, and I feared my beautiful queen and all her subjects 

 would die. I at once removed them into a clean new hive, 

 thoroughly cleansed the floor-board, and removed all the dead 

 every few days, and to strengthen them a little I added a comb, 

 with the bees on, from the next stock. On the 3rd of April 

 they seemed better, and the queen had recommenced laying. 

 As I had also lost one of my black stocks, I purchased one 

 from the country, very strong and heavy, in one of the old- 

 fashioned straw skeps, thinking it would prove useful in Li- 

 gurianising. 



April 11th, a glorious day, more like June. I tried to eSect 

 an exchange of queens, as the stock with the Italian queen was 

 very weak ; but, as Mr. Woodbury surmised, I found the bees 

 in No. 5, from which I had removed the pure queen, so irascible 

 on my {lesenting the black queen, that I thought it best to re- 



turn them and trust to raising queens artificially. The black 

 queen had a foot taken off in rescuing her from a worker. Oa 

 the 19th I found a royal cell commenced in this hive (No. 10), 

 and a grub in it, so I concluded the queen bad either been 

 slain for her temporary absence, or because she had lost a foot, 

 or she had been stung in the attempt to transfer her. I excised 

 the royal cell, and placed a bar of brood comb from the pure 

 stock in its place. I also placed the pure queen in a nucleus 

 box with all her attendants, and added a brood comb from 

 another stock, thinking they would be warmer, and thrive 

 better. On the 22nd I found three royal cells commenced on 

 the Ligurian comb, and one tenanted by a grub two or three 

 days old. I took out the oumb, and gave the pure queen to this 

 stock instead. They took to her rather suspiciously, and 

 encased her for a few hours, but I found her at liberty in the 

 evening. I took the comb with the royal cells, and placed it 

 and the others from the nucleus with the bees in No. 9, and 

 then placed them upon the stand of the old straw stock, and re- 

 moved it to a new stand. On the 2.3rd the pure queen was 

 busy laying, and the bees in the artificial swarm were very 

 numerous, and attending carefully to the royal embryo. They 

 had made several pieces of new comb already. On the 30tii 

 I found two royal cells on one comb in the swarm, and one 

 royal cell upon another ; so I placed the latter in a nucleus 

 box with the adhering bees, and then set it on the stand of the 

 straw stock, and removed it to another. On the .5th of May I 

 found both queens at liberty in the artificial swarms. A few 

 days afterwards I formed another by taking a brood comb from 

 the pure stock, placing it in a nucleus box, and then on the 

 stand occupied by the straw slock, removing the latter again 

 to a new stand. The last swarm never reared a queen, and 

 perished. 



About this time I began to fear my queens thus reared arti- 

 ficially would not be fertilised, and that I should have nothing 

 but drone-breeders. However, on the 4th of June I found lots 

 of eggs in one of the hives. This queen continued laying fast 

 for about a fortnight, and I was congratulating myself on my 

 success ; but on the 18th or I'Jth I fancied they were not light, 

 so I examined the hive and could not find the queen either in 

 the hive or out of it, but I found three or four royal cells formed, 

 one sealed and others in progress. I looked again on the 20th 

 but could not find her, and cannot form any idea what be- 

 came of her ; and although I removed the royal cells, and gave 

 the bees a brood comb from the pure stock, they never raised 

 another queen, though very strong at the time, and eventually 

 they dwindled away until none were left. The royal cells taken 

 from the last I gave to an artificial swarm ; this raised a queen 

 but I never saw her, the cell was empty, but no queen could be 

 found ; and either from the age of the bees, or from fighting, 

 although they were G or 7 feet from any other hive, one-half of 

 them must have died, the ground all around being strewn with 

 the dead. 



On the 6th of June, the queen in one of the first swarms had 

 not been rendered fertile as there was no sign of eggs or brood, 

 so I took about sixty drones in a glass to the hive, and then the 

 queen was taken out upon a comb and set oil for a flight, the 

 doorway blockaded, and the drones set at liberty. She was 

 soon back on the alighting board, but was sent off again several 

 times, until I found some of the workers attacking her when 

 she alighted, and fcaiing they might kill her I allowed her to 

 enter. On the 8th of June I found a few eggs, so it seems she 

 had met with a drone on the 6th ; judging from these facts she 

 must have been thirty-one or thirty-two days old at least before 

 she became fertile, as I saw her first on the 5th of May. This 

 swarm never prospered, and was afterwards joined to another, 

 but in September all died. 



On the 20th of June, although I had made three or four 

 artificial swarms from the old straw stock, on going into the 

 garden about four o'clock I observed in a pear tree what I at 

 first took for a piece of matting, but on looking again I found 

 it was a large swarm of bees; of course I had them hived as 

 quickly as possible, and in ten or twelve days they had nearly 

 filled a Woodbury hive with comb, and as I feared they would 

 castoS' a virgin swarm I placed a super on, but they never 

 worked in it — the honey season here seemed to be over. The 

 "old straw " must have had a wonderfully prolific queen, as 

 the number of bees I took from it was immense, and on the 

 30th they seemed ready to swarm again. I had heard " piping " 

 the last two days. They came out in numbers several times, 

 but I could not watch them, so I drove them cut, and placed 

 them in a Woodbury hive on their old stand, and swept the bees 

 from the artificial swarm above mentioned into the straw hive. 



