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JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



401 



the box. On looking at it nest day, they had commenced 

 several queen cells, and had carried the Burplus eggs into the 

 adjacent comb; not only into the cells on the side next to the 

 brood comb, but also carrying an equal number into the cells on 

 the other side, just as a queen having laid some eggs on one 

 side of a comb, always (I believe) goes round and lays an equal 

 number on the other side. No doubt for economy of heat, I was 

 surprised, however, to find the workers carry the egga so far, and 

 show the same instinct in disposing of them as the queen does." 

 "Egg-carrying," says the editor in a note appended to Mr. 

 Bassano's letter, "has frequently been observed, but is often 

 disputed. We can, however, vouch for the fact." — A. Pettigkew. 



HINTS FOE THE MANAGEMENT OF SMALL 



APIARIES. 

 One of the difficulties which at this time of year presents 

 itself to persons who have as many stocks as they want, but 

 who wish for the utmost produce of those stocks in the form of 

 honey, arises from the natural inclination of bees to swarm. 

 Now swarms are all very well for those who want them, but a 

 real trouble and nuisance to a number of people who do not 

 want them. Year after year the difficulty recurs. Everything 

 goes well up to a certain point, and then all is changed. Here 

 are three or four splendid hives as busy as possible, giving pro- 

 mise cf no end of honey. Supers are put on in due time, they 

 are being beautifully filled; another week and the rich spoil 

 ^vill be garnered. But, alas ! off goes a swarm ; every bee in 

 that swarm has taken a good bellyful, and the super is per- 

 ceptibly emptier and lighter than it was yesterday, and not full 

 enough to be taken. What is to be done ? What ought to have 

 been done to prevent this disaster ? for disaster it is most as- 

 suredly. If the swarm had not issued there would have been so 

 many more bees at liberty to collect the honey which is sure 

 to be abundant sooner or later ; whereas now a larger number 

 of the bees will be required to attend to the young larood of two 

 nurseries, and much of the honey will be consumed in the new 

 hive in making the combs, while the diminished population of 

 the old stock will be cousuming at a rapid rate the stores 

 actually accumulated; and what if second and third swarms 

 follow ? Not to speak of the frequent loss of the prime swarm 

 itself, although, as it was not wanted, its flight under the cir- 

 cumstances is almost a relief. 



Now the picture I have drawn of a distressed bee-keeper is no 

 uncommon one. It is the experience of a multitude of persons 

 who love honey and long to produce it, who keep a few hives 

 for the purpose, and often have no honey at all after years of 

 patient waiting. Can nothing be done this present season to 

 save them from disappointment? 



First let us see what can be done to prevent swarming. Of 

 course we cannot always prevent this. Some years bees will 

 swarm in spite of all precautions. Still, no doubt, we can 

 ordinarily prevent it. The remedy is simply to give the bees 

 abundant space for breeding and storing honey, with ample 

 room for comfortable egress and ingress, and facility of ventila- 

 tion. For this purpose a gradual enlargement of the hive col- 

 laterally with a corresponding gradual enlargement of the • 

 entrance in the same direction would be found almost a specific I 

 against swarming. Neither ekes nor supers piled up on high I 

 are so successful in preventing swarming, because in both cases 

 the heat rises, while the remoteness from the entrance of the 

 upper regions, some 2 feet distant, makes it a very laborious 

 and inconvenient matter for the bees to ventilate properly, not 

 to speak of the trouble of climbing so high. I am not alluding 

 to "collateral boxes" as they were called, such as were used 

 and recommended by the late Mr. Nutt. Occasionally these 

 answered very well, more often they failed utterly. I am speak- 

 ing of ome large hive, say 24 or 28 inches long, 12 inches wide, 

 and 9 or 10 inches high, with sliding divisions, capable of being 

 removed in the spring and replaced in the autumn. Such a hive 

 is the nearest approach to, and yet an improvement on, one of 

 the favourite localities selected by stray swarms — namely, 

 between the joists and flooring of rooms which have a commu- 

 nication with the open air. If such hives were made with bar- 

 frames, an exact adjustment of plunder and convenient supply 

 of food and breeding combs could be made every autumn, when 

 the contracting slides are replaced for the winter. The entrances 

 to these hives should be capable of contraction and enlargement 

 according to the season, and might range from 3 to 9 or 10 inches 

 wide. Hives of this sort are yet to be constructed, as I am not 

 aware of their ever having been tried. 



But what of ordinary hives, how can these be prevented from 

 swarming ? The next best thing is to put on each a large flat 

 super with plenty of space for easy communication, regardless 

 of whether the queen breeds in them or not. The ordinary 

 plan is to have the communications as small and narrow as 

 possible, to prevent the queen from ascending and laying eggs in 

 the supers. We should say to those beekeepers for whom I am 

 now writing, Never mind the queen ascending and spoiling the 



symmetry of your honeycomb. Some of it may not be quite so 

 beautiful as you would like, but if honey abounds a large pro- 

 portion of the comb will be as perfect as you could wish, and aa 

 to the rest the rearing of one batch of young bees in freshly 

 made comb is but very slightly deteriorating. Anyhow what 

 you lose in quality you will certainly gain in quantity, in fact you 

 will have both quantity and quality in measure. 



Suppose with all your care one of your stocks should swarm. 

 We advise you to put it into a full-sized hive and set it in the 

 place of the stock out of which it came. If you remove the old 

 stock to a new temporary stand for a day or two, most of the 

 full-grown bees in it when they fly abroad will return to the 

 old stand and strengthen the swarm, which ought to become 

 heavy, supposing it to be an early one. As for the old stock, 

 now greatly weakened in population, it may be usefully em- 

 ployed in preventing the swarming of one of your other stocks, 

 if you have any, instead of being treated in the usual way ; for 

 you can turn it up and after fumigating the bees with a little 

 brown paper or fustian smoke, cut out every royal cell that you 

 can see. This done we recommend you to place the stock as a 

 super over one of your other stocks. It will be taken possession 

 of immediately by the bees below, who will hatch out carefully 

 all the young brood in the cells, and proceed to store honey in 

 them after a thorough cleaning. If the combs should be older 

 and blacker than those of the stock to which you propose to 

 join them, we advise rather the reverse treatment. Place the 

 swarmed and empty hive under the stock instead of over. By 

 this means what honey you get will be stored in the fresher 

 combs of the younger stock, and will be proportionately purer. 

 This plan is largely adopted iu America, and helps them to 

 those enormous harvests of honey of which we read. Of course 

 the houey will not be of first-rate quality, but by a judicious 

 method of treatment by separating the cleaner and fresher 

 combs from the rest and extracting the honey separately, a very 

 profitable harvest will be obtained, some of it being very excel- 

 lent honey. 



Where common straw hives are used they can be almost in- 

 definitely enlarged by the addition of supers or ekes. The eke 

 is the surest preventive of swarming, but we would elevate the 

 hive on a box of stout wood with several long parallel slits in 

 the top — say a foot long and an inch wide. The depth and size 

 of the box must be regulated by the season and the pasturage of 

 the locality. Also the entrance must be large, and only at the 

 lower part of the box. That in the old hive must be stopped up. 

 — B. & W. 



NEW BOOK. 



A Manual of Bee-keeping. By J. Hunter, Honorary Secretary of 



the British Bee-keepers' Association. London: B. Hardwiok. 



Recently we had occasion to refer to aU the English works 

 that have been published on bee-keeping, and we found them 

 amounting to more than fifty. First was " Profitable Instruc- 

 tions for the Perfect Ordering of Bees," and that was published 

 almost three hundred years ago, for 1579 is the date on its title- 

 page. Then we had before us Butler's " Feminine Monarohie," 

 published in 1034, when Charles I. ruled the land, and which 

 we notice only to observe that six years later, when Cromwell 

 was Protector, John Day of Caius College, Cambridge, named 

 his book "The Parliament of Bees;" and in 1655 Samuel Hart- 

 lib, yielding still farther to political expediency, designated his 

 volume " 'Ihe Reformed Parliament of Bees ! " Passing over 

 all the others, we will only observe that within years very 

 recent we have had thoroughly practical works published on 

 bee-keeping by such thorough apiarians as Bevan, Tjylor, Wood- 

 bury, and Pettigrew — all good and all cheap ; therefore we advise 

 Mr. Hunter in the next edition of his book to erase from its pre- 

 face this sentence, "I was acquainted with no work embracing 

 the requisites of cheapness and completeness up to our present 

 standard of knowledge." That Mr. Hunter's volume will soon 

 reach to another edition we have no doubt, for it is a careful 

 condensation well arranged of all the knowledge requisite for 

 successful bee-keeping. He does not confine himself to the 

 results of his own practice and observations, but candidly ac- 

 knowledges that he has gathered— but always naming his autho- 

 rities — whatever he knew would help the novice " on the road to 

 profitable bee-keeping in a merciful and rational manner." 



Every arrangement, every need, every operation is separately 

 considered iu thirty-six sections. We will enable our readers 

 to judge for themselves by quoting one, because it is the shortest. 



"EonisiNQ. — 'Honesty is the best policy,' but bees seem to 

 think the contrary, and ' might gives right ' is a proverb more 

 often acted upon by them. Should a hive become weak, and 

 especially if queenless, as soon as the state of affairs be dis- 

 covered by a neighbouring strong family, a raid is organised. 

 Poor bees ! gallantly do they defend their stores, and great tha 

 slaughter that ensues but numerical strength is sure to conquer. 

 When the assailed are fully assured that resistance is in vain, 

 they act very wisely, and instead of fighting longer, turn to and 

 help the invaders to carry off the stores, and in reward are re- 



