January 8, 1874. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOBTICULTUKE AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



47 



very qneen of flowers he fomid decked out like the jay, " in 

 borrowed plumage ;" so very extensively, too, that he and a 

 brother judge were helpless to disqualify; farther on, amongst 

 the lovers of the feathered tribes, that Canaries are now pro- 

 duced in bright colours like a fast print, " warranted to wash." 

 The artificial colouring being an internal process, cannot of 

 course be expected either to breed or moult true — produced, in 

 short, to show and sell. To escape such disagreeables I took 

 refuge as a last resort in our own especial comer. 'What there 

 met my view but an article from the pen of your valued con- 

 tributor Mr. Pettigrew on the art of supering, containing the 

 humiliating confession that the much-vaunted supers of the late 

 horticultural exhibition were simply after all artificial, of Man- 

 chester manufacture, produced by feeding. 



The honey display at Manchester after a season the worst in 

 the experience of most bee-keepers, at least with ns in the 

 north, caused a general feeling of distrust to get abroad that 

 there was something mysteriona about these productions ; but 

 to the present writer the name of Mr. Pettigrew, who projected 

 and collected the necessary funds to carry out the praiseworthy 

 idea was a sufficient guarantee that everything would be con- 

 ducted fairly and aboveboard, the more so as in a proposed com- 

 petitive test of various hives he suggested in the spring, bee- 

 keepers were to be excluded from all interference with their 

 colonies, so that there might not be practised any " clever 

 trickery," as he termed it ; and I remembered, too, his burst of 

 honest indignation the other year at some Stewarton supers, 

 which had found their way to his city, and in his opinion were got 

 np by feeding with sugar syrnp, while another contributor as 

 stoutly maintained the aforesaid supers contained no more sugar 

 than did his pen. 



The inquiry naturally enough arises, Was the art of supering 

 pursued at Manchester by feeding a fair and legitimate compe- 

 tition 1 Most of your readers will agree in thinking with me it 

 was not, no doubt ; although Mr. Pettigrew tells us some of the 

 supers exhibited were got up with sugar syrup, and consequently 

 excluded, he fed with pure honey, the surplus of his stocks 

 driven the twenty-fourth day after swarming. In such a season 

 as last this was clearly what had remained over of former seasons, 

 and consequently was H of, as the rule demanded, "the produce 

 of 1873." Supposing the same mode to be adopted next season, 

 the surplus would be more or less the left-over sugar syrup of 

 the fall of 1873. I cannot agree with your correspondent that 

 " any honey tainted by farina or other impurity " can be given 

 to bees with impunity to store in supers. The grosser impurities 

 will doubtless be left behind, but the taint will remain. 



Mr. Pettigrew presupposes that when the "art" of artificially 

 filling-up supers becomes generally known, the production as 

 well as the demand must be materially enhanced. I am afraid 

 the opposite of this wiU hold good. Honeycomb in supers has 

 generally realised about double the price per pound of run honey, 

 because the wealthier classes assumed in purchasing it in this 

 form they procured at the enhanced price pure virgin honey in 

 contradistinction to the impure stuff, possibly adulterated with 

 brown sugar, which is too often palmed-off as run honey. But 

 let it once go forth that supers are no longer the pure nectar of 

 the flower of the current season's gleaning, but mere " works of 

 art," dependent for their composition on the conscientious- 

 ness of the respective artists, tind they will speedily become but 

 fancy ornaments to decorate their dwellings or the honey ware- 

 house. 



The most reprehensible part of the exhibition was the unex- 

 plained artificial nature of the contents of the supers exhibited 

 at Manchester. The crowds of spectators were permitted to 

 examine and move away ixnder the false impression that tl ev 

 were boiid-Jide productions, due to some particular hive ; nd 

 system superior to what they already possessed, and the extreme 

 badness of the season caused the disparity to appear all the 

 greater. Mr. Pettigrew excuses himself thus : " The Inter- 

 national could not wait for a favourable honey year, hence I had 

 to resort to artificial means to get my palaces filled." One beau- 

 tifully sealed bar of fresh pure honeycomb would be of more 

 value in the eyes of the straightforward honest bee-keeper than 

 any so-styled crystal palace of the Manchester Exhibition. To 

 the practical apiarian are such crystal palaces reckoned works 

 of high art ? I trow not. They could, if thought advisable, be 

 produced easily of an enhanced size to the "Try to beat this " 

 of Manchester manufacture ; the whole thing involving merely 

 the possession of a few swarms of bees and a cask of the cheapest 

 foreign honey — according to Mr. Pettigrew it mattered not how 

 much fermented, tainted, or filled with impurities, it would all 

 be purified in the slinging process ; but most people would sup- 

 pose refined sugar the more wholesome of the two. 



To illustrate that such manufacturing is not altogether a new 

 Manchester idea, I chanced some years ago to make the acquaint- 

 ance of a town resident who knew absolutely nothing about bee- 

 keeping. He had a friend, however, to whom he was indebted 

 for some very beautiful glasses of honeycomb. The season I 

 first met him his friend had secured not one but many palaces 

 of various sizes; a couple ran to about Manchester weight. 



From the description of his situation — the centre of a wide heath 

 district, and knowing something of the results obtainable by 

 combining prime swarms, I never for a moment di'eamed but 

 that all were genuine. My acquaintance told me he was going 

 to take a run through to visit the bee-master, and promised to 

 bring some particulars on his return of points of manipulation 

 respecting which I wished for information. He was as good as 

 his word, giving a graphic description of the enthusiasm of his 

 friend upon bees, how he intended getting-up a glass for pre- 

 sentation to Her Majesty of a size that the largest I had seen 

 would be nothing to, how he could easily fill a glass case as large 

 in size as the railway carriage in which they were then travel- 

 ling, how it would be a good thing to bring out one glass flavoured 

 with citron, another lemon, itc. I brouglit him np rather ab- 

 ruptly, telling him I feared his bee friend was but a manufac- 

 turer, and dropped the acquaintanceship, at the same time 

 pitying the one who had invested a considerable sum in the 

 purchase of the largest palace. 



The best proof that the Ayrshire bee-keepers are not, as a 

 body, guilty of palming-off sugar syrup for flower honey, as 

 insinuated by Mr. Pettigrew, is their accustomed octagons are 

 nowhere to be seen the present season, when the price and the 

 scarcity would make the temptation all the greater. Their 

 glass merchants are not like the International, they are forced 

 to " wait for a favourable honey year." The following colloquy 

 passed between, I beUeve, the largest bee-keeper in Ayrshire 

 and his merchant. On making his appearance the first question 

 asked was, " TVliat has become of your honey ? " His reply, 

 " My bees have gathered no flower honey this season, I Imve 

 none to bring, and cannot make it." 



At every exhibition, of whatever description, there ought 

 always to be a lynx-eyed committee of investigation, who would 

 go round disqualifying, if need were, before the judges began 

 their duties, which are onerous enough without being called 

 upon to act as detectives. Were it once known such a system 

 was rigidly enforced no " unpleasantness " would follow, and 

 frauds and chicanery disappear. Our southern friends shoiild 

 take the example set them by the Drectors of the Ayrshire 

 Agricultural Society some years ago. An " outsider " brought a 

 buU which successfully competed in the open division, carrying 

 off first honours, and was at once sold at a long price. His head 

 was ornamented with a particularly stylish pair of horns, which 

 were very much admired. Some inquisitive individual put back 

 the hair at the roots, and made the discovery that the horns were 

 false, stuck on with gutta percha. On this being communicated 

 to the Directors the exhibitor was summoned before them, when 

 they intimated that his prize was forfeited and his name for ever 

 expunged from the list of members. The Fiscal, on behalf of 

 the criminal authorities, then took the matter up, and he was 

 tried at the next assizes for fraud and wilful imposition, fines 

 refused, and condemned to an imprisonment of many months. 

 The horns of the bull were real horns from another animal. The 

 foliage of the rose blooms were real too, borrowed from another 

 bush. The honey was also real, borrowed from other hives. 

 The deceived purchaser of the buU could never expect him to 

 reproduce the same horn, or the buyers of the rose the same 

 fohage; those of the Canary the same golden tint ; nor yet the 

 Pettigrew hive the same amount of honey during a similar 

 season, all ranking alike in the category of the false and decep- 

 tive. — A Kentkewshire Bee-keepeb. 



FOOD FOE BEES. 



AccoRDiNS to Dr. Edwin Lankester fresh cow's mUk contains 

 86.0 per cent, of water and 4.5 of sugar and, of course, skim milk 

 has a greater per-centage of water and less of the heat-pro- 

 ducing materials which form the cream taken off by the process 

 of skimming. I maintain, therefore, that skim milk, as it con- 

 tains a small portion of nutriment and transforms the sugar 

 liquid into honey colour, is much preferable in preparing bee 

 food than merely water "pure and simple." Mere thin sugar 

 toffy, I think, is deficient in the consistence, the strength, the 

 mealiness, the farina of honey, and to correct this defect_ I add 

 oatmeal, which is the best and strongest of meal, and I find, as 

 I stated in my first note, that the bees clear it away with quite 

 as much dispatch. — A. T. W., Kidwelly. 



[We have omitted some paragraphs. There is no " farina " 

 of any kind in honey, whether you mean by that term the 

 pollen of a flower's anthers, or meal, which is the synonym of 

 " farinaceous matter." The most successful bee-keepers we 

 have known feed only on a syrup of the consistency of honey, 

 made of sugar, water, and a very slight addition of salt. That 

 bees seek for saline matters is well known by those who have 

 watched them alighting on pebbles by the seashore and the 

 puddles in stable-yards. — Ens.] 



Pigeon Noitenclature.— In reply to your correspondent 

 " TuBKEV QniLL," it will, I think, be sufficient to state that, 

 so far as I can understand his meaning, I described the Silver 



