134 



JOUBNAL OF HOBTIOULTURE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



[ August 6, 1874. 



These aerial postmen are entrusted to resident correspondentB 

 in various places, ready to be dispatched at any moment, whilst 

 others are sent out by reporters to places where important 

 events are transpiring. It is now no uncommon thing to see 

 reporters at police courts, inquests, public meetings, &c., dis- 

 patch folio after folio of " copy " by press Carrier Pigeons tossed 

 through the nearest window, or thrown out of a train or steamer 

 going at full speed. The attachment of these birds to the 

 place of their birth, and their ability to find their homes from 

 marvellous distances, are, of course, their distinguishing 

 characteristics. 



A " cohxmbier " or home is established at the various news- 

 paper oifices, and whenever a bird arrives with a message the 

 act of the Pigeon entering its cot sets a call-bell ringing in the 

 editor's room, the bell machinery continuing in motion until 

 attended to. Being expressly bred for press purposes — convey- 

 ing news to our great cities — they are not the pure Carrier 

 Pigeon (which is larger, heavier, and slower on the wing, and 

 not so well adapted for press purposes), but are of a special 

 pedigree, bred by Messrs. Hartley & Sons, of the Woolwich 

 Gazette, Woolwich, from prize birds imported from the best 

 lofts of Antwerp, Brussels, and Lit-ge ; all " producteurs " being 

 rejected which have not won a 300-mile " concours." Press 

 Carrier Pigeons owe their origin to Darwin's principle of " natural 

 selection," or the " survival of the fittest." In the struggle for 

 life in connection with the compulsory flying of long distances, 

 the homing and flying powers of the Pigeons are developed to 

 a large degree, "whilst the birds which cannot do the distance 

 are necessarily lost and eliminated. The surviving or winning 

 Toyageurs become thus educated to the highest standard of per- 

 fection, and this system being continued through many genera- 

 tions (the flying distances increasing every year), a race of Pigeons 

 have been produced with powers which a few years ago would 

 have been deemed impossible. 



Press Carrier Pigeons, though as a rule only used for short 

 distances, in competition with the electric telegraph, can be 

 specially trained to distances of 500 miles, and frequently fly 

 to England from Dublin, Brussels, Paris, Lisbon, and even 

 Rome. The utilisation of the instincts of birds for press 



Eurposes is being carried even farther than this. An ocean- 

 oming bird of great docility, intelligence, and spirit, has been 

 found in Iceland, which flies at a meteor-like speed of 150 miles 

 an hour, and is able to find its home, over sea and land, from 

 any part of the habitable world. A pair of these birds a few 

 days ago brought dispatches from Paris to a lonely spot, con- 

 genial to their nature, in a wild and rocky part of Kent, within 

 ten miles of London, in an hour and a quarter. Press Carrier 

 Pigeons took the dispatches on to the City, the whole distance 

 from Paris to Loudon, by actual parcel mode of conveyance, 

 being done within an hour and a half. It the experiments at 

 present being made in training and educating them continue 

 successful, it is hoped by next summer to establish a daily 

 miniature ocean mail between America and Europe, the whole 

 distance to be traversed between sunrise in one hemisphere and 

 sunset in the other. — (Standard.) 



[When will general newspaper writers understand anything 

 about Pigeons? I may well put this question, considering that 

 the above ludicrous paragraph appeared the other day in a first- 

 class London daily paper. Fancy " folio after folio " attached 

 to poor Pigeons' legs or central tail feathers ! But, Pigeons, 

 hide your heads before " the ocean homing bird from Iceland, 

 who now builds in Kent." I should like the writer to catch that 

 bird. Always catch your hare first. If building " in a wild and 

 rocky part," I should fancy this bird would be wild too ; rather 

 large, I should also fancy, and with possibly strong beak and 

 sharp claws. I hope the writer will kindly catch that bird. 

 When the bird comes back I presume he carries a whole Stan- 

 dard of news at least. At the next Crystal Palace Show I hope 

 my friend Mr. Wilson, always enterprising, will kindly borrow 

 the wondrous bird and put him among the Homers ; or, better, 

 put off the Show until April 2nd, and send the writer to catch 

 him on April Ist before noon. Perhaps after all the writer mis- 

 directed his letter, and his account was meant for Fan or Jndij 

 — a sort of heavy, very heavy, joke. — Wiltshire Eectob.] 



HONEY PROSPECTS— A RODBOROUGH VALE 



APIARY. 



This is the fourth year of my experience as a bee-keeper, and 

 it is by far the best honey season I have known. My stock in 

 the spring consisted of nine Ligurians, eleven hybrids, and five 

 English, since ligurianised. My best Liguriau stock, after taking 

 from it seven nuclei, has half filled a super ; from another I 

 have taken two supers weighing gross 33 lbs. and -13 lbs., and it 

 has nearly filled a third. From one other a super weighing 47 lbs. 

 Three more have nearly filled two supers each, and five one 

 each ; the rest were either partly filled with comb in the spring, 

 and have crammed the stock hives, and partly fiUed supers, or 

 from being ligurianised have been thrown back. One has been 



kept comb-building to supply nuclei ; one swarmed, after partly 

 filling two supers, on June 1.5th ; the queen had one wing 

 damaged, and fell in front of the hive, most of the bees 

 returning. I then, on the 20th, took out three brood combs 

 with queen cells, making three nuclei, thinking it would stop a 

 second swarm ; but they threw a very large one on the 25th, 

 which has filled up the hive, and stored considerable honey. 



My bees are all, with the exception of one hive, in Woodbury 

 hives, mostly made of 3-inch stuff ; the later-made ones are 

 1-inch, and on separate stands, which I consider preferable. I 

 gave them above 2 lbs. of sugar syrup monthly through the winter 

 and spring, and ihey were mostly strong in April. I lost three 

 stocks during the winter ; one from neglect, and two lost queens. 

 My supers are of wood, with a small 2-inch window, and when 

 filled hold about 40 lbs. The honey harvest is now, I think, 

 over, and I am taking off supers. Aston's bee trap clears them 

 with very little trouble.— G. S. T., Stroud. 



BEE-KEEPER'S CALENDAR FOR AUGUST. 



Generally speaking, August is the last month of honey- 

 gathering in Great Britain, and where bees are taken to the 

 moors it is often the best. I have stated elsewhere that a 

 twenty-acre field well sprinkled with white clover will, in fa- 

 vourable weather, yield to bees 100 lbs. of honey daily ; and I 

 have no hesitation in saying that twenty acres of good heather 

 will yield more honey while it continues in flower than clover. 

 The heather being hardier is less affected by weather. Clover is 

 easily affected by cold weather, and seldom yields much honey 

 after July. On heather bees can creep from flower to flower, 

 and thus load themselves easily and speedily ; whereas on most 

 other plants they have to fly from flower to flower. Once only 

 have I known a hive gather 20 lbs. in two days, and this was 

 done on the moors. Mr. Shearer, in a letter of the 21st of July,. 

 1874, informs me that on the Saturday before a swarm of his 

 rose in weight 10 lbs. in twenty-four hours — that is to say, from 

 Friday night to Saturday night. Such gatherings by single" 

 swarms are unusually and exceptionally large. Five pounds 

 gathered from clover or heather by a swarm in twenty-four hours 

 are a very good day's work. By-and-by we shall frequently hear 

 of 5 lbs. being stored-up in a day by a single swarm. By the 

 figures of Mr. Bagshaw in last week's Journal I see that some 

 of his hives gained about 15 lbs. a-week each — i.e., from 30 lbs. 

 to 35 lbs. in seventeen days. 



All bee-keepers who intend to remove their bees to the moors 

 should transport them there as soon as possible, for now (July 

 3l3t), bees are gathering honey from the early heather blossoms. 

 Two days ag6 I took fifteen hives to the Glossop moors, the 

 bees of which commenced to gather honey almost as soon as the 

 doors were opened. By the time this letter appears in print we 

 shall have thirty more hives there ; indeed, they would have 

 gone this week if the carter had not been previously engaged. 

 The early blossoms of heather yield more honey than the later 

 ones. The reader must bear in mind that the first half of the 

 heather season is better for honey-gathering than the second 

 half. 



Those who do not remove their bees to the moors will now 

 begin to think of taking their honey, for, where there is no 

 heather, honey-gathering generally ends with July. 



Before a hive is taken for honey the apiarian should examine 

 all his hives thoroughly and weigh them with a view to select a 

 certain number for stock, and mark those that are to be put 

 down for honey. In seasons of early swarming the first swarms 

 are generally the heaviest, and as they contain the oldest queens 

 and most honey they are usually marked for honey. This year 

 the swarming time was uncommonly late, and therefore many 

 of the stock or mother hives are heavier than their swarms at 

 the present time. A fortnight of favourable weather will enable 

 the swarms on the moors to overtake, overleap, and overweigh 

 the stock hives. Our first swarm weighed 56 lbs. before it was 

 taken to the hills. 



In selecting stock hives the apiarian should prefer those with 

 young combs of the worker kind, and as free from drone cells as 

 possible ; and it is desirable that the hives should be filled or 

 nearly filled with combs now, for in spring bees instinctively 

 build too much drone comb in hives but partially filled. Such 

 hives become half filled with drones about the swarming time, 

 and it is well known that drones eat a great deal of honey and 

 gather none. 



Second swarms and turnouts have both young queens and 

 young combs, and therefore are eligible in this respect for keep- 

 ing. In good seasons they are generally heavy enough for 

 stocks, say from 40 lbs. to 50 lbs. each. Where the turning-out 

 system is not followed, the mother hives as well as first swarms 

 are often in good years too heavy for keeping. If first swai-ma 

 be selected for stocks the ages of their queens should be con- 

 sidered, for it is not safe nor wise to keep queens three years 

 old. Some die at that age, and none live more than four years. 

 A great loss is sustained if a queen is permitted to die of old 

 age, whether death takes place before or after swarming. Soroe 



