Deoomb«i 3, 1871. ] 



JOUBSAri OF HOUTICDLTURB AND COTTAaE GABDENEB. 



oil 



we allade was the shortness of time allowed for jadgiag. The 

 judging begtia about 10.30. The doors were open to the public 

 at 12. There were evidently one or two slips in the last two 

 classes in Pouters, cocks and hens bred 1871. This is accounted 

 for by the crowding of visitors into the Show before the judging 

 was finished. The Conaniittee is fully alive to those disad- 

 vantages, and intend to have a full day for judging in future, as 

 well as an alteration in the tables named. 



UNITING BEES. 



I HAVE mach pleasure in complying with the request of your 

 correspondents to describe the mode of uniting bees practised 

 here for some years with invariable sucoess. At the same time 

 I must confess to a series of failures previous to the adoption of 

 the system, and it was only after a long and careful study of the 

 habits and instincts of the bees themselves that we succeeded. 

 I say we, because I am much indebted for his experience in the 

 matter to a neighbour who keeps from eighty to a hundred 

 hives, and who throughout the season will unite the above num- 

 ber, including those bees he gets from others in the neighbour- 

 hood who are about to destroy them to get the honey. He drives 

 the bees and unites them to his own stock. 1 keep from fifteen 

 to thirty hives, and admit not having the large experience 

 he has. 



By comparing notes we have come to the conclusion that the 

 following is the best mode of uniting, after many a trial, and 

 though others of your correspondents in their descriptions of 

 the process of uniting come pretty near it, there are one or two 

 points not noticed to which we attach great importance. We 

 have tried the smearing process, but believe it to be very injurious 

 to the bees, and wonder now why we ever tried it, seeing the 

 extremely clean habits of the little workers. To smother them 

 over in their own sweets is, to say the least, cruel, and bees once 

 smothered in the way recommended never do any good until a 

 young stock is reared. We admit they lick each other clean 

 again, but the hair on the bees is generally all destroyed, 

 which cannot be good for them ; and besides, it is no preventive 

 of fighting if they once begin, as we have proved over and 

 over again. But to our process ; and that it may be useful to 

 the generality of bee-keepers I will first state the way in which 

 we proceed with the common straw or wooden skeps with fixed 

 combs, and then that which we adopt with the Woodbury or 

 moveable bars. 



First, then, we attach great importance to thoroughly frighten- 

 ing the bees before we begin, by blowing from a piece of cotton 

 rag some puffs of smoke into the mouth of the skeps to be operated 

 upon, aud giving the skeps several good raps with the hands. 

 Shut up the entrance, then turn both skepa upside down; this 

 will set the bees at once to fill themselves with honey. If it is 

 known that there are plenty of cells with honey not sealed up 

 they will fill themselves in ten minutes; but that there may be 

 no doubt on the point let them be twenty minutes in this posi- 

 tion, continuing to give them good raps with the hands to rouse 

 them, at the same time getting everything prepared for what will 

 follow. Place beside the turned-up skep another empty skep or 

 box the same height, for the skep which the bees are to be driven 

 into to rest upon ; then gently remove the board (any bees ia it 

 should be shaken into the skep), next place the empty skep over 

 the one the bees are in, and give some raps with the hand, when 

 they will run into the skep prepared for them in about two 

 minutes; draw back the skep till the two edges meet — the skep 

 will rest on the one set for the purpose — let the edges of the two 

 skeps nearly join, leaving only sufficient room for the bees to 

 pass from the one skep into the other. All the bees and combs 

 will now be exposed. It is well to have the two edges of the 

 skeps meeting at the ends of the combs. When the bees run 

 along the combs into the skep, a few puffs of smoke and raps 

 with the palms of the hands will soon cause them aU to leave 

 the hive. 



The queen must now be sought for and destroyed. This is 

 done by laying a bag or such-like cloth on the ground, and 

 placing an empty skep on the end of it, with the front raised about 

 an inch by means of two wooden wedges. Then shake a few 

 bees down on the sack or cloth, and look for the queen as the 

 bees run into the empty skep, which they will do rapidly if they 

 do not hear the sound of the bees still remaining in the hive, 

 which should be covered with a board and moved aside a short 

 distance. Sbake out more bees on the cloth until the queen is 

 found. Should she not be found on the first trial, after all the 

 bees have been shaken out, which sometimes happens, the same 

 process must be repeated by causing them to run again into the 

 hive they were shaken from. 



This may seem a laborious process to those who have not tried 

 it, but really it requires less time to perform than to describe it. 

 If the queens are both of the same age they may be united 

 without catching one of them, but in that case it sometimes 

 happens that a queen-eacasement takes place, which causes 

 annoyance and sometimes danger to the queens. It is soon 

 observed when an encasement takes plice by the unsettled state 



of the bees, in fact they sometimes leave the hive. When that is 

 Been lift the skep, and either one or two balls of bees will be 

 seen with a queen encased in each. One of the queens must be 

 destroyed, when they will soon settle. We always catch the 

 queens we wish to destroy in case of accidents. 



The two hives are then taken into a dark room with a lamp 

 burning very low — just sufficient to see the bees, the liame of 

 the lamp covered with a glass globe in case any of the bees 

 take wing, which they seldom do. We use a parafiiu lamp. 

 Lay a cloth on the floor, remove the board from the hive which 

 is to receive the bees, then shake some of the bees out of the 

 skep from among the combs. If the skep is heavy this shaking 

 is not so easily performed. In that case we run or drive about 

 five thousand, or 1 lb. of bees, into an empty skep, and shake 

 those bees on the cloth in front of the skep from which they 

 have just been driven, then shake the whole of the driven bees 

 among them, when they will all run together into the skep. If 

 the weather is warm the wedges must be lifted a little higher to 

 give air, as whenever the bees are disturbed the temperature 

 rises, and the bees will not run in readily if it is too hot, but if 

 sufficiently cool they will all run in in a few minutes. They 

 should remain in a dark room all night, and be placed on any 

 stance next morning. Not a single bee will be lost or fail to find 

 out its home. 



The process with the moveable bars is slightly diilerent in 

 practice, the principle is the same. We give them the smoke 

 and raps with the hands, but do not turn them upside down. 

 After removing the top, which alarms them enough, we take 

 out the bars till we find the queen to be destroyed, then place 

 the other skep to run the bees on the cloth, with the wedges 

 inserted as before ; shake the bees from two or three of the 

 combs on to the cloth in front of the skep, take out the combs 

 from the skep from which the queen has been removed, and 

 shake all the bees oS the comb among the bees on the cloth, 

 when they all go into the skep as in the former case. It may 

 seem from the description of both processes that the latter is the 

 easier, but really the operation can be performed with the one 

 sort of hive as speedily as the other, with the exception of its 

 being more easy to get the queen on the moveable bar than by 

 running the bees on the cloth. 



The merits we claim for our system are, then, first we do not 

 injure the bees in any way — neither by smearing with honey nor 

 using fungus or chloroform to stupefy them. Second, we approach 

 them as nearly as possible to the state they are in when swarming 

 naturally by filling themselves with food, and by shaking a few 

 of the bees from the skep in which the others are to be united 

 on to the cloth; and mixing, as it were, the bees together on the 

 cloth, they enter the hive as friends, ready to join ia the ad- 

 vancement of the new home, and not as robbers ; aud third, we 

 secure their complete subjugation by causing them to unite in 

 the dark. 



I may state, however, that though we advise the taking them 

 into a dark room as an infallible cure for fighting, and also for 

 uniting in spring when the weather is cold, we frequently let 

 the mixing of the bees of both hives on the cloth out of doors 

 before entering the hive suffice ; but were we to see the least 

 indication of fighting, we would remove both into the room 

 at once. When the bees in the hive cease ty make the familiar 

 hum as those on the cloth and these meet, you may be certain 

 of a fight, but if the hum is kept up by both parties it is a 

 certain and joyful union. 



When several swarms are to be put into one hive they are all 

 driven into one empty hive first, all the queens having been 

 caught except the one fixed on to keep, and mixed with the bees 

 on the cloth as before described. A few weeka ago as many as 

 eleven were united to one, on another occasion five, and another 

 six. In other cases two and three are united, and I can safely 

 assert that not a single bee was killed by fighting, unless robbers 

 from other hives came among them, which they are very ready 

 to do, as they soon smell the honey. — A. Shearer, Yester, 



P.S. — In my last communication there was a mistake in the 

 printing, the price of the honey was Is. 9d., you had it 2s. 9d. 

 —A. S. 



HIVES. 



"Apicdla" takes up the cudgels against wooden hives iu defence 

 of Mr. Pettigrew, but he must give us some better reason iu 

 proof of the superiority of hives of straw over hives of wood 

 than the one only advantage he has alleged. We are all agreed 

 that straw is a very excellent material for the manufacture of 

 hives ; it is both cooler in summer and warmer in winter, and 

 wooden hives must be protected accordingly. I am not so sure 

 as to the superior dryness of the one over the other. If coated 

 with propolis iu the interior the difference is }iil, and all hives 

 become so coated after a time. However, I will match this pre- 

 sumed advantage of the straw hive by the superior advantage of 

 the wooden hive in point of durability; and the other I will 

 match by the fact that I never yet heard of mice entering a 

 wooden hive, whose entrances therefore do not require to be 

 " narrowed so that only two or three bees can come out at the 



