August 6, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTUaE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEE. 



135 



fourteen days pass before the bees can rear a queen to take her 

 place, and about fourteen days more pass before the young 

 queen begins to lay. This is not all, for if the queen die after 

 swarming the bees instinctively begin at once to build large 

 sheets of drone comb in the centre of their hive. If a hive 

 with an old queen be selected for stock — and this is often done^ 

 and another with a younger queen be selected for honey, the 

 beea with the old queen should be driven into an empty hive 

 with the view of seeing and destroying the queen. Then the 

 bees with the younger queen should be driven from the honey 

 hive and cast into the other ; also the bees bereft of their queen 

 should be cast back into their own hive amongst the rest. Thus 

 the stock hive would obtain a young queen and a double portion 

 of bees. If the hive with the young queen he selected for stock, 

 the bees of the other (but not its queen) should be united to it 

 in like fashion. Apiarians who keep large hives and manage 

 their bees in this way have hives second to none for excellence, 

 power, and real value. Old combs are most objectionable — 

 black and ugly, frequently half filled with pollen. The honey 

 in them is difficult to take. I repeat that old queens and old 

 combs should be pushed aside in selecting stocks for another 

 year. Every bee-keeper who does notwish to increase his stocks, 

 and who manages them on the swarming principle, can do this 

 easily every autumn. 



" Sometimes in very good seasons almost all the hives become 

 too heavy for stocks. What, then, should be done ? " Part of 

 their stores must be cut out. "But then that leaves room for 

 drone combs next spring." Of course it does, but we can't help 

 it. To-night I shall cut a great number of honeycombs from 

 three hives that will be taken to the moors next week. They 

 now weigh about 60 lbs. each, and are rather too heavy for an 

 old man like myself to lift on and off a cart. I expect to obtain 

 60 lbs. of honeycomb from the three. The practice of reducing 

 the weight of hives now is more convenient than commendable. 

 If these hives were to go to the moors as they are, and were to 

 have fourteen days of fine weather, they would rise in weight 

 to more than 100 lbs. each. There are two ways of dealing with 

 hives too heavy for keeping — viz., by reducing their weight, or 

 by driving all the bees out of them at the end of the season into 

 empty hives and taking their honey; and if this be done, where 

 are the stocks to come from ? The honey in such seasons and 

 cases is taken, but the bees are preser\'ed and fed. Two swarms, 

 or one large one, are put into an empty hive and fed very 

 vigorously ; at least, 20 lbs. of sugar and about an equal weight 

 of water should be boiled and given to every such swarm or 

 hive of bees. From this syrup the bees will nearly fill a 16-inch 

 hive with combs, and such feeding promotes breeding. A good 

 hatch of young bees is produced late in the season in these 

 sngar-fed hives, which make very good stocks. Their combs 

 are young, and free from a superabundance of pollen. When 

 spring arrives they will be found to thrive uncommonly well. 

 "While being fed they should be kept warm, and the syrup given 

 to them regularly in considerable quantity. Every bee-keeper 

 will use his own contrivance in feeding such swarms. I have 

 not spoken against any system of feeding, and I am not going 

 to begin to do so now. Such swarms are fed from below by 

 various contrivances. Sometimes through holes in the floor- 

 board the bees get the food from a hive or dish below ; and I 

 once saw a very successful apiarian feeding his swarms from 

 pits dug in the earth. The holes or pits were about 1 foot wide 

 and deep, with a dish at the bottom ; the hives were placed 

 over them and kept warm ; the syrup was poured into the 

 dishes daily. Thus one season, just ten years ago, he created 

 nine as good stocks as the eye of man ever beheld. " How much 

 sugar did he use in making these nine stocks ?" He told me he 

 gave 25 lbs. to each hive. He sold above L'50 worth of honey 

 that year, and could well afford to buy t'.') or i'6 worth of sugar. 

 " In taking honey from heavy hives do you destroy the un- 

 hatched brood ?" Yes, if we have plenty of bees without it ; but 

 if the hives are not plentifully filled with bees wo endeavour to 

 hatch the brood by fixing or placing the combs of brood (cut 

 from the honeycombs) in a box or hive as regularly as we can, 

 and casting a swarm amongst them, covering all up with a lid. 

 Sometimes the brood combs of three large hives are placed in a 

 box thus, and hatched by a single swarm. The bees thus 

 hatched are invaluable for strengthening hives not strong in 

 bees. "Do not the combs thus placed fall out?" They would 

 if the box were turned up or placed on a board, but this is 

 avoided by placing the board over the combs and not moving 

 the box. 



In unfavourable seasons the heaviest hives are most eligible 

 for stocks. The bees of the weaker ones are made to strengthen 

 the stronger ones. The bee-keeper's aim should be to have all 

 his stocks well filled with bees, and food enough in them to keep 

 them till March. 



When I took up my pen I intended to arrive at the most dis- 

 agreeable thing in bee-keeping — viz , the taking of honey and 

 wax, but that will have to stand over till next month. 



One favour I have to ask of the readers of this Journal and 

 the public generally: it is that they will not write so many 



private letters to me. While I am anxious to promote apiarian 

 science and help working men to make money from bee-keeping, 

 I have not time to answer private communications. If the 

 readers will kindly send their inquiries to the Editors I shall be 

 greatly indebted, and some day perhaps I will give them my 

 autobiography in acknowledgment of their considerate conduct. 

 Twenty letters a-week about bees and so many postage stamps 

 are a heavy tax for a working man to pay. 



[Those who ask questions really must attend to this request, 

 and our own to the same effect which appears at the head of 

 answers to correspondents. — Eds.] 



A great many letters lately have been written to ask how bees 

 are driven and united. Doubtless many of these letters come 

 from beginners who need instruction. For their benefit let me 

 here repeat what will have to be repeated again and again before 

 aU apiarians are enlightened and advanced. When bees are to 

 be driven their hives are first smoked — well smoked with fustian 

 rags, then turned on their crowns, other hives empty placed ou 

 and over them, and a tablecloth rolled round the junction to 

 keep in the bees. The bottom hive is now beaten with the open 

 hand to cause the bees to run up. About fifteen or twenty 

 minutes' drumming will drive almost all the bees into the empty 

 hive. A few stragglers that remain can be brushed out with a 

 feather or killed with a puff of powder. Thus hives .of honey 

 are free from bees. The bees driven can be easily united to 

 another hive by first pouring minted syrup over the combs and 

 beea of the hive to receive them, and about twenty minutes 

 afterwards the bees should be cast in amongst the combs and 

 bees, and thus the union is accomplished frequently without the 

 destruction of a bee. I heartily congratulate the apiarians of 

 Great Britain and Ireland on their prospects of a large harvest 

 of excellent honey. — A. Pettigrew. 



DOGS.— No. 4. 



OFFICIAL DOGS.— IContinuerl.) 



A MAEK of a thorough good protective dog, who understands 

 well his office, is that in whatever house his master and he 

 are in, he protects that house because his master is there. Pro- 

 tective dogs are, as to varieties, very different, some very large, 

 others very small ; for the little pet of the house, whose barkings 

 cannot be stilled by the thief who seeks an entrance, is not to be 

 despised. Nay, such dogs, if not allowed to get near an outer door 

 or a window, where they may be either stupified or poisoned, 

 are more hated by burglars than large dogs, if these are simply 

 chained outside a house where they are easily quieted. The 

 sharp little Toy Terrier, the little Spaniel, the Maltese, the Toy 

 Skye, the Pug, &c.— all these have a higher than fancy value if 

 they are made dogs of protection, dogs of office. But let all 

 owners of pet dogs remember that their dogs cannot be ex- 

 pected to be alert and useful at night if they are fed after the 

 middle of the day. The wheezy, plethoric, dainty, crammed 

 pet who will just condescend to eat rich food, and that late in 

 the day, is sure to be snoring his apoplectic sleep, and not be 

 awake and barking when wanted, and the thief may walk over 

 his very nose. Oh ! why will ladies overfeed their pet dogs ? for 

 so doing they destroy both their beauty and utility. 'Tastes, of 

 course, differ in regard to dogs, and right and well it is that 

 they do differ. One man prefers a large dog, himself often 

 being small; while a six-foot burly man is devoted to dogs 

 that he can put into his pocket. My own taste runs for con- 

 centrated strength, as seen in a BuU-terrier, at least, when 

 wanting a protective dog ; although, perhaps, the lone farm ia 

 better guarded by two dogs, a BuU-terrier, much bull, and a 

 cross-bred Mastiff. These, if with a dash of Scotch Deerhound 

 in them, are preferred by Australian settlers. 



Occasionally, a few times in one's life, the real use of a pro- 

 tective is brought strongly before us. Three years since I was 

 driving late in the evening across Salisbury Plain, from Salis- 

 bury to Devizes. Excepting the Fen country, this perhaps is 

 the dreariest ride in all England. The Druids— if they were 

 Druids — rightly chose that situation for their hateful and bloody 

 worship : the scene was suitable to the deed. I shudder now 

 when I think of that supremely dreary ride. The laud being 

 poor, pasture farms are few — here one and there one, with vast 

 barns and offices rising on the horizon, as ugly as the Plain 

 itself, like ill-shaped warts on deformed horny knuckles. And 

 as I approached each farm, oh ! the barking of the dogs ! that 

 barking which is combined with tearing at the chain — mad, 

 furious barking — that of dogs savage by long confinement. 

 These were dogs protective indeed, and no chance had the 

 pilferer or the burglar. I seemed to be in some half-civilised 

 country, and if a group of blacks with spears in hand had crossed 

 my path I should scarcely have been surprised. The value of 

 such dogs as dogs of office in such a lonely place can hardly be 

 over-estimated. As a hint, I would observe that brindle is the 

 best colour of all for night dogs, the colour for the game-keeper's 

 protector, and for the farmer who goes his rounds at night. 

 Brindle of some shades is also a rich handsome colour, and I 

 regret that it is objected to on the show bench. This certainly is 



