December 17, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



557 



Cup, proBented by the Committee, for the best bird ehown by membor.i, S. 

 Percival, Gateshead. 

 Silver Mtd.il, R. Lee, Thirsk. 



Silver Medal, for Classes 3 and 4, T. English, North Shields. 

 Silver Medal, for Classes 1 and 2, J. Rutter, Sunderland. 

 Silver Medal, for Class S7, A. J. Dance. 

 Silver Medal, (or Class 28, J. Bexsou, Derby. 

 Silver Medal, for best Mule in .Show, J. Speuce, South Shieldg. 

 Silver Medal, for Classes 24, 25, 26, and 27, H. Frozer, Newcastle. 



BEE-KEEPING. 



I ASK yon to insert an account of my experience in bee-keep- 

 ing during the last four monttis, to encourage those who, like 

 myself, are novices in apiculture, and to solicit bints from the 

 more experienced which may point out defects in my manage- 

 ment and suggest improvements for further guidance. 



The old and cruel system of burning the bees from the hives 

 to be taken up, is in full vogue in this neighbourhood. I have 

 always taken great interest in the busy workers so mercilessly 

 destroyed, and I made up my mind to try and save aa many as I 

 could this autumn from the sulphur pit. 



Last spring I purchased a stock of bees in an ancient bell- 

 shaped straw skep. In March I cut a hole in the top, and 

 through this I fed the bees in April. Following the advice so 

 often given in this Journal, I succeeded in getting the bees to 

 take down syrnp from an inverted bottle. Early in June a 

 Bwarm was hived into a straw skep purchased from Mrs. Pagden , 

 of Alfriston, Sussex, and I have since employed none but these 

 hives. They are of good size, and being strengthened by a baud 

 of wood to rest on the floorboard, are always dry and clean. 

 From these two hives I took early in August in straw supers 

 18 lbs. and 23 lbs. of honey respectively, finding no difficulty in 

 getting the bees to leave it by following the directions given in 

 these pages. 



The time now drew near when I was to put into practice my 

 design of saving all the bees I could from the burning. I had 

 taken notice of three gardens in which a goodly array of hives 

 had been standing through the summer. I spoke to the owners 

 about the new system of driving the bees, for new it was to them. 

 The answer in each case was, " Well, sir, you get the bees out 

 alive if you can ; you are kindly welcome to them if the new 

 scheme does not injure the honey." " If I show yon that the 

 honey can be thus taken free of dead bees, as it cannot be by 

 your method of burning, for scores of bees in trying to escape 

 the deadly fumes die in the cells — will you, then, for the 

 future save your bees by driving them out aa I shall, and by 

 feeding them in the manner which I will point out, or by join- 

 ing them to weaker hives?" Now, it is not an easy task to 

 persuade such men to abandon the old practice and to take at 

 once to a totally new one, and so I will not say that those whom 

 I have tried to convert will at once adopt the humane system, 

 but in time I am certain to prove to them the utility of it. 



I had never driven a swarm of bees in my life, but I made up 

 my mind to practise on my own two hives first, and then on 

 those of my neighbours. I was most successful at my first 

 attempt. The bees nearly all ascended in about fifteen minutes. 

 The few left in the old hive soon made their escape after being 

 confined in a shed for a short time. I intended to take all the 

 honey, and found just over 30 lbs. with very little brood. I 

 commenced feeding the same day, and found that from 1 to 4 lbs. 

 of syrup was carried down in twenty-four hours, the amount 

 depending upon the state of the weather. My bees were driven 

 on the 12th of August. 



On the 24th of the same month I was asked to take the bees 

 from cottager No. 1. He wished eight hives taken up, mostly 

 old stocks. Before commencing with these I turned up my own 

 hives very carefully to note progress : they had each had about 

 30 lbs. of syrup in twelve days, and I was delighted to find in 

 one hive five combs, white as snow, well stored, and reaching 

 nearly from crown to floorboard; in the other there were six 

 combs, not so large as the others, but equally well filled with 

 syrup. This gave me much encouragement, and I went to work 

 with a will at the eight hives. I drove them all into clean new 

 ones, four on August 25th, and tour on August 26th. I fetched 

 them away in a cart each evening ; I spread out the wrappers 

 on the ground before the stands prepared for them (some facing 

 north, some south-east, by way of experiment), and then I joined 

 one of the two weaker to one of the stronger. This was most 

 easily performed in the twilight without any gloves or bee-dress, 

 1 gently lifted the strong hive aside to the corner of the sheet, 

 placed two sticks a few inches apart in the centre, then with a 

 sharp rap I knocked out the swarm from the hive between the 

 sticks, and instantly placed the other hive over. This I did 

 again with the other two. At about ten o'clock I went out with 

 a lantern and found every bee had ascended. Not a live bee was 

 there on either sheet, and what was better still, there was not a 

 dead one. I at once lifted the two hives on to their stands and 

 placed afeeding.bottle over each ; there was amerry hum instantly, 

 and the bottles were half emptied, and the bees flying about 

 examining their new quarters. Early nest day I went through 



the same process, with like success on the morrow, excepting 

 that from some cause I could not dislodge more than half the 

 bees from one hive by beating. This hive was a late swarm and 

 had very little comb or honey in it. The bees would cluster on 

 the empty side of the hive, and would not mount to the top one. 

 I brushed out all I could with a feather, and moved the rest with 

 a little smoke from old rags while I was beating another hive. 

 I was enabled to present the owner with eight hives of honey, 

 not a dead bee among it, and in the whole only one comb 

 broken, which I placed in a dish which stood near me in case of 

 accidents. 



I may here mention that to prevent the bees which followed 

 the hive and those which flew out before the bandage was 

 properly adjusted from annoying me, I placed a heap of damp 

 burning rags to windward of my little table, and I found them 

 most effective in driving off the bees, so much so that after beat- 

 ing a few secondsl was left entirely unmolested, and the cottager 

 who had come home to his dinner was able to stand with me 

 within the magic circle without any protection whatever. I 

 lifted up the top hive very gently and not a bee flew out; we 

 saw them pressing upwards in a compact mass, and in a few 

 minutes the top hive was put in the place of the old one. I 

 now had four new and strong colonies, increasing my apiary to 

 six hives. I fed them as fast as the bottles were emptied, and 

 felt that all was going on satisfactorily. The weather was in my 

 favour, very fine and warm, and two fields of late clover were 

 still in flower, so that my bees worked with a will to secure the 

 last sweet contributions of the season. 



It was not until the 2nd of September that I was called upon 

 to take the bees from the garden of cottager No. 2. Here I had 

 nine hives at my disposal ; I drove six one day, and the three 

 others next day. Here I found by experience that the heavier 

 the hive the less trouble was there to dislodge its inmates. 

 Ten minutes was sufficient to send most of the bees up where 

 they were numerous and the hive full of honey, whereas twenty 

 minutes were barely sufficient to drive out a colony from a 

 partially empty hive. However, I succeeded in getting all safely 

 mounted on my own floorboards on the evening of September 

 3rd, having made from the nine hives four strong families by 

 joining the three weakest into one, and the others two and two 

 together. Now my array of hives had increased to nine, and 

 " all went merry as a marriage bell." The clover was no more, 

 hut the warm weather continued, and the bees most readily 

 took down the syrup. I used large preserving bottles, holding 

 4J lbs. of syrup. 



On Monday, September 8th, I drove the six hives in garden 

 No. 3. One hive had but a very few bees in it, and hardly any 

 honey, the wasps had nearly destroyed this hive. The bees 

 were kept in a kind of cupboard or grotto, in a sunny part of the 

 garden. The hives were almost hidden by trailing ivy, which 

 touched the tops of many of them. A more inappropriate place 

 could not have been chosen. There was no way of getting 

 behind the hives, and they stood fourteen in number, upon two 

 shelves, one above the other, each hive nearly touching its 

 neighbours. I found them all firmly glued with propolis to the 

 boards, and the first hive I moved caused the whole apiary to be 

 in a tumult. However, being well protected I succeeded in 

 taking the bees from the hives marked for me. One was 

 particularly difficult to move, and I only found out the cause 

 when by force I detached it from the shelf. Behind it, with 

 ivy tendrils all interwoven was a heap of splendid comb, full 

 of honey and sealed up ; this was on the open board at the back 

 of the hive accessible to all the other bees of the apiary. Why 

 was it not attacked and pilfered, since all parts of it were 

 assailable? This question occurred to me, and I can only give 

 one reason : that the bees of this hive were over-powerful in 

 numbers. I took nearly a quart of bees from the old hive when 

 I drove them, and at night when I fetched away my own hive I 

 found quite a gallon of bees clustered in it. To these I joined 

 the few from the wasp-destroyed hive, and also a very weak 

 swarm from another hive, bearing in mind the constant advice 

 of Mr. Pettigrew, " Have strong colonies." I found the remain- 

 ing three swarms of medium strength, and therefore joined them 

 all into one. 



Thus I now have eleven hives to stand the winter. In unitmg 

 all these twenty-three swarms into nine hives I had not one case 

 of fighting, although I did not use scented syrup with which to 

 sprinkle the bees before casting them together. Was it that 

 they were so terrified at the summary ejectment from their 

 homes a few hours before, that they had no wish for fighting ; 

 or that having nothing to protect in the shape of honey or brood 

 they amicably united to begin life anew ? These questions I 

 leave for those with more experience than mine to answer. 



Now, to sum-up the results of this driving and uniting. I 

 have given altogether to the eleven hives just over 3 cwt. of 

 sugar— that is, at an average, 30i lbs. to each. Some have takeo 

 more, some less. The last day of October I found some of those 

 first driven with stores weighing from 30 to 35 lbs. Thus the 

 weight was about equal to half the weight of the syrup given, 

 because 30 lbs. of sugar would be equivalent to 60 lbs. weight 



