316 



JOUENAL OF HOKTICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GARDENEE. 



[ April 18, 1865. 



just as you would straighten a bent wire, and kept straight 

 by such tempoi-ary appliances as your ingenuity may suggest. 

 It will be best to get rid of the bees entirely by driving 

 them in the ordinary way into an empty box, which must 

 take the place of the hive. Convey the latter into a room 

 with a fire (the kitchen, we should say), shut the doors and 

 windows, ami having previously cleared the table operate 

 thereon at your leisiure. If any combs be attached to more 

 than one frame they must be partially or even sometimes 

 wholly detached, set flat, and then secured in theu- proper 

 places by means of wire, strips of wood, and zinc clips in the ' 

 manner recommended in page 18 of the fifth edition of 

 " Bee-keeping for the Many " (wherein, however, the printer 

 has inverted the woodcut to our everlasting confusion). 

 ■WTien the job is completed to your satisfaction, return the 

 hive to its place in the apiary, remove the crown-board, and 

 knock the cluster of bees out of their temporary domicile 

 on to the top ot the exposed bars. They will " skedaddle" 

 down between the combs with the utmost alacrity, and the 

 crown-board may then be replaced. The whole, or nearly 

 the whole, of the temporary supports may be removed at 

 the expiration of twenty-four hours, but if any combs are 

 not then firmly fixed, such as are required should remain a 

 day longer. 



You may readily convert a bar-hive into a frame-hive by 

 enlarging it from front to back as much as is necessary, but 

 the bees and combs must be shifted into another domicile 

 whilst the alteration is in progress.] 



A QUEEN ENCASEMENT AND DESEETION OF 

 HIVES. 

 The pages of my bee journal have been opened but 

 seldom during the discouraging season which we have so 

 long been passing through, and upon those occasions only 

 for the purpose of entering some uninteresting or common- 

 place observation, or to note some necessary operation ; but 

 to have at last a notable stir in our apiary, although it may 

 have involved the loss of a hive, is rather welcome than 

 otherwise, as an indication that we may now, backward 

 though we certainly are, look forward to some few observa- 

 tions worthy of notice and of a place in the above-mentioned 

 journal. 



Although the instance of queen encasement which has 

 just come under my observation is but one of many I have 

 witnessed, yet the attention of apiarians having lately been 

 called to this subject, I am induced to narrate one more 

 Buch instance, although it may not, in its general features, 

 vary much from some others, and, perhaps, wiU not offer 

 anything new to those who may have turned their attention 

 to this phenomenon. 



The 30th of March, although ushered in with a rather 

 sharp frost, with tlie long-continued easterly and northerly 

 winds still exercising a retarding influence upon our back- 

 ward and too quiet apiary, yielded in the afternoon of that 

 day to a more genial sun, affording me some little oppor- 

 tunity of judging of the prosperity and strength of my 

 hives, and certainly I felt a little cheered at the increased 

 animation exhibited pretty generally tlu-oughout the ajiiary. 

 One stock, more especially, of bees driven from a cottager's 

 doomed hive in September last, indicated more vigour than 

 I could have expected, knowing well that the tenants were 

 but few, and having ascertained beyond doubt that no 

 robbing or being robbed was the cause of this activity. This 

 stir, though I knew it not, was a premonitory symptom of 

 a general exodus of the whole tenants of the hive, showing 

 how frequently a close observer may be misled in the 

 external indications of a colony of beea. I did not witness 

 it, having left the spot at the time they must have issued, 

 neither had I any catise to suspect their having taken 

 such a step until quite late in the daj', when, in casually 

 passing a hive, I was startled at observing a dense cluster 

 of bees at the entrance. Of course I well understood what 

 it indicated — namely, the encasement of a queen ; surely it 

 could not be their own sorercign, whom I knew to bo a fine 

 fertUe one, young bees playing out in some nvimbers that 

 very day. Still, with some misgivings, I at once commenced 

 an inspection of the hive, an eight-bar box ; first, one middle 

 comb was raised, brood in all stages, and bees far more 



numerous than I expected to find them, but no queen; 

 another comb, ditto ; a third, one side carefully inspected, 

 no queen ; but turning it, there she was — a beauty — pacing 

 over the comb, all right, to my great satisfaction. So this 

 imprisoned queen which, of course, I rescued previous to an 

 inspection of the hive was some poor unfortunate wanderer. 

 It did not strike me that I should look for the queenless hive 

 amongst the quietest, rather did I expect an indication of 

 that unfortunate condition in the most restless, at least, 

 after the lapse of some little time ; but no, all continued to 

 drop in quietly, except one, and that one the very hive I 

 alluded to as manifesting more than usual activity, so I at 

 once turned it up, a straw hive, and beheld not a bee. Here, 

 then, we have a case of the desertion of a clean, healthy hive, 

 well stored with honey, a fertile queen, as eggs and advanced 

 larvffi indicated, a case also of fraternising with an adjoining 

 hive, and also of violent antipathy towards, and encasement 

 of, the poor queen. I should like to have the opinion of 

 those who may have experienced a similar combination of 

 events, for it is not clear to me why the bees should have 

 deserted their hive. 



I have another instance of desertion to narrate, which has 

 turned out highly satisfactory. A late cast from a second 

 swarm of last season, occupying a veiy old, but clean and 

 wholesome butt, with combs worked down about half way, and 

 a very fau' number of bees gathering pollen, and looking 

 promising, deserted on the 31st of March. This hive I had 

 marked as intending to drive and transfer combs and all to 

 one of my tan hives, but the bees have forestalled me, 

 shifting their quarters quietly, singularly enough, to a tan 

 hive, not, however, the one I was preparing for their recep- 

 tion. Although in my garden at the time I was unaware 

 from whence the bees which fiUed the air proceeded, and 

 I was too anxious in watching the movements of the swarm 

 to ascertain. I soon observed a gradual concentration of 

 their forces towards my large open bee-shed, containing its 

 six hives, three of them tan, two of the latter in a pros- 

 perous condition, the other scanty in population and with a 

 somewhat doubtful queen, and which I purposed strengthen- 

 ing in due time with a swarm. Now, I hoped the beea 

 would fraternise with this hive, with or without a sovereign 

 at their head, neither was hope long deferred, for presently 

 I had the pleasure of watching them pouring into this hive, 

 and also saw and captured a very fair queen, which I at 

 once presented at the entrance ; a welcome was accorded to 

 the bees, and peace has since reigned, and the old queen, 

 small and insignificant, was ejected three days subse- 

 quently. 



We had now to look for the deserted hivo, and found it to 

 be the one above-mentioned. "Why did they desert it, there 

 being brood in all stages and many young bees which we 

 had to transfer to their new hive ? So there is no mistake 

 as to this tan meeting with the approval of the bees. I 

 expected the new and old tenants of this hive would all of 

 them shortly return and partake largely of its sweets ; but 

 no, not a bee approached it for a day. Knowing, however, 

 that sooner or later, indiscriminate robbery would induce a 

 terrible state of excitement in my garden, I transferred a 

 few lots of the bees upon sweetened paper to the hive, and 

 soon found they possessed the monopoly of its contents, no 

 doubt, to the great improvement of the state of their 

 diminishing larder. — Geokge Fox, Kingslndac, Devon. 



OUR LETTEE BOX. 



BiiKDt Fowls lAuglii:u3).—\\'e mw Roino of thusc fowls very recently 

 In tho ZooloRlcal Giirdi-n« ut Amstrrilam. Wc think tlierc urelhnio vmietien 

 — li'.iick, (irey or Cuckoo, unil Wlilte. They iiro tine biril*. und Imvc many 

 Kood quumicB. They wo noticod in "The I'oultry-liook for the Many." 



Ivv ItoUND FowL-iioDsi! (tf A'. <S.).— It wlll DOt itijvivu thu fowls. 



.SiKWAUTOK HlVlM-SlZK 01' Mlli I'/IVILION IN NUTT'« 1I1VK« {F. T. 



Kirkliii Lansdalr.i.—Mr. W. Kimlc-h.iiii. stewiirton, Ayivliire, munufac- 

 lures Stewurton hives. IIU udvurtlneincnt, with pricoa, iippcarod in our 

 ■lournal of March 26 and April 4th. Thlrleen lnclie» kquaru by nine inchua 

 deep IS u good Mza lor the ceutrul couiparlmcnt ol a Nutl's collatcial 

 bivc. 



Enticino Hkiss Mn ''''' Suhsrrihrr. JW^r/irf/i).— The only mode of 

 entlclnn been tinm their home in by placing hive, eilher wholly or partially 

 Hlled with coinb, in the nuiKhbourhood of an apiary with the view of 

 iillracling Bwariiia to enter them. Thl« pnieticc cannot he loo stronKly 

 reprobated, but can only be guarded agalnBt by IncrcasBll vigilance during 

 the swurratng eeason. 



