Juno 4, 1874. J 



JOURNAL OF HORTIOOLTDKE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



457 



Mr. r. — Booause the Uda of the cells are beoominf; browu, 

 which indioates that the young queens are nearly ripe. With 

 your finger and thumb break this cell from the comb and take 

 it out. 



Mr. B.— How easily done ! Do I really hold in my hand an 

 unborn princess? 



Mr. P. — Yes; and with it I wish to teach you one or two 

 lessons of great importance to those who seek to mauage bees 

 profitably. Let us now examine this other old hive with the 

 black combs. Please to smoke it and turn it up. Well, it is 

 full enough for swarming ; see how the bees are heaped on the 

 board and running over its edges. By swarming it now artifi- 

 cially you could utUise the queen you hold in your hand. 



Mr. B. — In what way, and with what advantage ? 



Mr. P. — An hour or two after a swarm with the queen shall 

 have been taken from this hive the bees left will commence to 

 seek for their lost queen, and failing to find her will take two, 

 three, or more eggs from common cells and place them in royal 

 oells, and thus do all they can to repair the injury they sustain 

 in being bereft of their queen. Now, if this queen's cell, which 

 you hold, were fixed between two of the combs iu the centre of 

 the hive as soon as the bees begin to mourn their bereavement, 

 they would gladly accept the cell, and take special care of its 

 royal inmate, kuo'\'iug well the value of the boon that would 

 thus be bestowed. They could not rear a queen from one of the 

 eggs iu their own hive in less than fourteen days. This queen 

 from the other hive would be hatched and in a laying condition 

 some twelve days sooner. To give late swarmers queens from 

 earlier swarmers as soon as they are deprived of their queens is 

 one of the master strokes of bee-management. But knowing 

 that you are bent on having your bees in better and larger hives 

 this season, it will, I think, be better not to give the later swarmer 

 a queen in this way, for if given it would commence to lay before 

 the brood now in the hive would be hatched. As these hives 

 are small, aud the season not an early one, I advise you not to 

 take second swarms from them, and thus you will obtain larger 

 swarms, which we call "turn-outs," on the twenty-first day after 

 the first swarms were obtained. Bees being only twenty-one 

 days in their cells, you may then take the honey from the old 

 hives without sacrificing a single cell of worker brood. Drones 

 are twenty-four days in their cells, but there is uo loss or sacri- 

 fice in destroying drone bees and brood. In turning all the 

 bees out of stock hives on or after the twenty-first day from 

 swarming, and taking honey from them, the bee-keeper has two 

 honey harvests every favourable season; and, moreover, his hives 

 are never filled with old, black, tough combs loaded with pollen. 



Mr. B. — I well understand all you have said. If my hives 

 were larger and all I desire as to shape and appearance, would 

 you advise me to take second swarms if they issue of their own 

 accord ? 



Mr. P. — Yes, for second swarms from large hives are in fine 

 seasons of great value, their hives rising in weight to 50 lbs., 

 60 lbs., and 80 lbs., containing from 30 lbs. to -10 lbs. of honey 

 each. Please to bear in mind that if we impart a queen to a 

 hive after the first swarm has been taken from it, no second 

 swarm wiU be obtained ; and if second swarms issue from late 

 swarmers or when we do not want them to swarm, they should 

 be hived and kept in their hives for a few hours, with a view to 

 let the piping queens be all destroyed but one, then carried to 

 the front of the mother hive and cast on to its flight-board. One 

 queen will be found cast out dead next morning, and no more 

 swarming will take place. Before I leave you, Mr. B, for a 

 month, let me give you another idea {a little bit of my own 

 peculiar practice), which you will find in future years to be of 

 ■considerable importance. In bee-keeping, practice must vary 

 with the season. A person with an open eye aud active brain will 

 not always be guided by rote and rule ; he improves upon his 

 own practice and the teaching of others. In most seasons large 

 bee-keepers have early and later swarmers. Some seasons hives 

 contain but little honey three weeks after swarming. In such 

 seasons we do not get much honey at the first harvest ; but still 

 occasionally we turn the bees out of hives when they do not 

 contain much honey and put them into empty hives, and imme- 

 diately take swarms from later stocks to re-people those hives 

 from which the bees have been driven. 



Mr. B.— Why? 



Mr. P. — Because the queens in these hives are just born, and 

 will not commence to lay for ten or twelve days ; whereas the 

 queens in the later swarmers are laying two thousand eggs daily 

 at least. The bees have thus an opportunity of setting the eggs 

 laid by their queens, and in fourteen days such hives are filled 

 with brood from side to side, and the " turn-outs " have time to 

 make combs before their queens commence to lay. It is not 

 necessary to wait till the twenty-first day before we turn bees 

 out, when we repeople the hives immediately afterwards, for the 

 swarms imported and imparted to them hatch the brood that 

 may be uuhatched at the time of turning out. This practice 

 is of vast importance to us, for we thus make late swarms equal 

 to early ones, and save ourselves from the fear of losing second 

 swarms by turning all the bees out of hives into empty ones as 



soon as the piping commences or the first queens in them are 

 born. 



This season, Mr. B, has been so far unfavourable for honey. 

 The month of May has been a discouraging one to apiarians. 

 You may find it necessary to feed swarms. It is well never to let 

 bees think of famine or feel the pressure of hunger. Keep 

 your swarms at work in building combs and hatching brood, 

 so that, even in cold or rainy weather, you may hear a hum of 

 joy and prosperity in your hives. If any of your friends wish to 

 commence bee-keeping, now is a very good time to get swarms 

 from the cottagers ; and those who buy should have them placed 

 in their gardens on the day of swarming, or, in other words, 

 before they commence to build combs. — A. Pettigbew. 



CRYSTAL PALACE HIVE AND HONEY SHOW. 



A COMMITTEE of apiarians propose to offer £100 in prizes for . 

 honey, honeycomb in supers, certain kinds of hives, and two 

 essays. I am sorry I have not a schedule by me to quote from. 

 The Committee have promises of contributions to the amount of 

 £70 and upwards. We may, therefore, look forward with some 

 degree of certainty to the apiarian exhibition at the Crystal 

 Palace next September. If thirty gentlemen more would con- 

 tribute 20.S. each towards this prize fund, the Committee, no 

 doubt, will thankfully receive their names, and be thus en- 

 couraged and enabled to prepare their final schedule of prizes, 

 and make all necessary arrangements for this proposed apiarian 

 fute. I sincerely hope that many ladies and gentlemen will 

 lend the Committee their countenance and support. All other 

 exhibitions of bees and honey in this country have been mere 

 local affairs compared to this. I shall, therefore, be glad if it 

 come off very successfully and satisfactorily.^ One great "crystal 

 palace " has already been manufactured in Manchester, and 

 sent to a distant county — I know where — to be filled with honey- 

 comb for the occasion. If a dozen or two of such palaces be 

 well filled and appear at the show they will create a new and 

 healthy sensation in London and its neighbourhood. Burke's 

 work on the " Sublime and Beautiful," contends that the 

 sublime produces on the minds of men far more striking and 

 lasting impressions than " the beautiful." If we have a favour- 

 able season for honey-gathering, and some large supers be ex- 

 hibited next September, a great and lasting impulse will be 

 given to bee-keeping in the south of England. As my desire 

 is to help the Committee, aud not to hinder them in any way, 

 I will abstain here from suggesting improvements on their 

 schedule of prizes which I saw some months ago. Imperfec- 

 tions, if they exist in this effort, will be excused and forgotten 

 by the public. I wish most heartily that great success may 

 attend the efforts of the Committee. — A. Pettigbew. 



SILKWORMS. 



Aftee many unavailing attempts, we succeeded last spring in 

 obtaining five hundred eggs of Bombyx Mori, five eggs of Bombyx 

 Yama-Mai,and three cocoons of Bombyx Cynthia. We kept these 

 in a cool dark cellar until the 2l3t of May, on which day we 

 arranged the eggs on saucers covered with muslin, because on 

 a previous occasion, having neglected the latter precaution, a 

 robin in search of a new dish, we presume, dined off the silk- 

 worms' eggs, and liked them so well that it did not leave one. 



The cocoons of Bombyx Cynthia are Hke in appearance to 

 filbert-shaped pieces of yellowish brown tow. We manufactured 

 a cage for them of muslin, with light cane frames, and suspended 

 them from the top of it by a thread, and placed the cage and 

 the saucers containing the eggs on a sunny shelf in a cool green- 

 house. 



We visited our treasures at least twice every day, and at the 

 end of a week were somewhat startled at seeing some dark object 

 fluttering iu the cage, and on close inspection we found two 

 magnificent butterflies had emerged from the cocoons. They 

 were fully as large as bats, their wings beautifnlly shaded and 

 coloured with brown, violet, and white ; a crescent in white and 

 violet decorated each wing ; hence they are called " Cynthia." 



Whilst contemplating these singularly beautiful insects we 

 noticed a slight movement of one of the cocoons, and saw 

 perhaps one of the most singular sights the insect kingdom 

 affords— viz., a queer little head, with black beady eyes, pushing 

 out through the top of the cocoon. After a great many efforts 

 the body followed the head, and the curious creature perched 

 on the top of its late prison, its wings hanging limply down by 



Having to leave our entomological pursuits, we returned to 

 the greenhouse as soon as possible, aud found the limpness had 

 quite left the new comer's wings, and it was as large aud hand- 

 some as its two companions. 



The following day we placed a sheet of white paper on the 

 bottom of the cage ; and finding we had only one female moth, 

 we removed one of the males, aud let it fly about the greenhouse, 

 which it ornamented far more than the choicest flower that ever 

 bloomed there. 



