June 13, ;o65. ] 



JOCr^-AL 0? lIORTICaLTUEE A^'T) COTTAGE GABDENEK. 



457 



of li to 2 feet, and each opening at the back like a cupboard, 

 the back being in fact a number of doors. This arrangement 

 enabled her to catch her Pigeons, inspect the nests, and 

 have all cleaned out easily, besides making a safe and com- 

 fortable home for the birds, taking up little room. I usually 

 see landing-boards not half so wide as they ought to be, for 

 Pigeons want a good broad space upon which to alight, coo 

 upon, and sun themselves — a mere ledge is a miserable 

 shift, and sometimes the Pigeons have not height either. 

 I have also found that the owners have been unable to paint 

 their pole-houses or repair them lest they should drive away 

 the birds; yet certainly they ought to be painted every 

 spring. Would any of our lady readers who draw well give 

 US) a sketch of a pretty and commodious house on a pole ?— 

 Wiltshire Eectoe. 



HIVES WITH ENTEA2s'CES AT TOP. 



When I saw the letter at page 352 with my name in it 

 I was as much surprised as my Eenfrewshire friend must 

 have been amused, and I am glad he has given me this 

 opDOrtunity of rectifying a mistake — a mistake I had not 

 the least intention should be made — viz., that of the letter 

 appearing in my name instead of that of Mr. C. Williams, 

 for whom I wrote it. Not but that I should have been very 

 proud of the honour of bringing before the public the utility 

 of this kind of hive ; the advantage over the entrance at 

 bottom I leave for any apiarian to judge. 



In the first place, the bees entering their hives at top 

 invariably enjoy good health, as they have a constant supply 

 of fresh air penetrating thoroughly among them without a 

 cold draught on the brood, as the air must have the chill 

 taken off it after passing through the bulk of bees before it 

 reaches the bottom. When the entrance is at the bottom 

 the brood is entirely exposed to the cold air, without the 

 same chances of its becoming warm, for it can never ascend 

 30 long as the air above it is warmer. 2ndly, The honey 

 keeps better in the cold dry air. 3rdly, The bees have not so 

 far to carry it, besides having the advantage of carrying it 

 down-hill instead of up. -ithly. More bees can be spared to 

 collect when a swarm is put into a new hive. 5thly, After 

 filling the stock hive they have only half the distance to 

 carry the honey to the supers. 6tUy, Bees kept in these 

 hives never suffer from damp, which is the plague of an 

 apiary, as it invariably finds egress in the shape of steam. 

 When the entrance is at the bottom the vapour condenses on 

 the sides, and runs out in streams of water, especially when 

 the hives are very strong, and the nights are a little cool. 

 Huish, in his work on bees, published in 1S17, page 72, tells 

 us that hives with a flat top for storifying are on an errone- 

 ous plan, and that it is the rock on which the partisans of 

 the storifying system have been wrecked, because, he says, 

 " The bees when in health never vent any excrement in the 

 hive, and being never benumbed, they continually consume 

 their food, and, consequently, evacuate by a considerable 

 perspiration, which rises in vapour to the top of the hive, 

 and in winter these vapours are almost continual, and it is 

 proper they should be carried off without falling upon the 

 bees." Again, at page 7t, he asks, "What is the most 

 common cause of the loss of the hives during winter?" "I 

 do not speak of hunger, for that is the fault of the pro- 

 prietor, but I maintain it is the moisture of the combs, 

 occasioned by the fall of the water collected at the top of the 

 hives, which are flat ; it is also the fall of these waters on 

 the bees which, stopping their perspiration, sours and cor- 

 rupts the matters which are in their body, causing the dysen- 

 tery, and carrying infection and death through the whole 

 community." 



How far these vapours tend to promote dysentery I cannot 

 say, as Mr. Williams assures me that since he has invented 

 this hive he has never had any disease in his apiary, or lost 

 a single hive, although he has kept the same from seven to 

 eighteen years before disposing of them. I have one that 

 I purchased from him that is now upwards of twenty years 

 old; and with all due deference to the critical acumen of 

 the " Eenprewshiee Bee-keepee," I am stiU obstinate 

 enough to maintain my original opinion ; and without more 

 substantial objections than he brings forward to convince 

 me of the uselessness of entrances at the top, I never intend , 



to keep a hive with the entrance at bottom in my apiary 

 a season longer than I can possibly help. I must say the 

 trial he gave them was certainly a very good one, for he 

 could not have made their entrance much nearer the top, 

 situated as he was, without making them go down the 

 chimney ; and the result of his experiment was equally satis- 

 factory, as he teUs us in one breath the plan succeeded so 

 well, that the very first season he took from two hives a 

 half-hundredweight of beautiful honey, and almost in the 

 next contradicts himself, and tells us that he most reluc- 

 tantly abandoned bee-keeping in high latitudes, under the 

 impression that hives with entrances at the top have to the 

 inexperienced only novelty to recommend them. I am glad 

 he is candid enough to tell us it was his inexperience in 

 dealing with them in that position that led him to abandon 

 them; at the same time he should not have complained of 

 his tools. 



Before I conclude. I feel that I am bound to answer the 

 only objection to Mr. Williams's hives — viz., the difficulty of 

 the bees cleaning them ; and in reply would ask, whether 

 at any season of the year there is more carried into the hive 

 than out of it ? And I have no hesitation in saying that 

 there is five hundred times more carried into the hive than 

 has to be carried out, even if the bottoms are never cleaned. 

 Then supposing the entrance to be at the bottom, the bees 

 have five hundred loads to carry up-hDl to one they carry 

 down or on the level. If, on the contrary, the entrance is 

 at the top, they will have five hundred loads to cari'y down- 

 hill to one up, and the advantage then is very manifest. 

 When an apiarian cleans the bottom board four times a-year 

 the bees wiU have very little to do in that way. I trust I 

 have shown some few of the advantages of this hive without 

 displaying any acrimony to my Senfrewshire friend. — Henet 

 Stdttle, Kingsland, Shreu'shury. 



FOUL BROOD INCUR-iBLE BY EXCISION. 



In the detailed report of my experience of " foul brood," 

 in No. 149, I showed how the excision of the entire brood in 

 my stocks signally failed to effect a cure, the disease break- 

 ing out in all its virulence in the new-formed portions of 

 comb. These stocks without exception died out during the 

 winter, although well found in store. 



With the view of aiding me as much as possible in re- 

 building my shipwrecked apiary, " A Devonshike Bee- 

 seepee," in the kindest manner sent me last April twelve 

 months his strongest Ligurian stock, and although it lost 

 upwards of five thousand of its population on the journey, 

 speedily recruited, and appeared quite healthy. With the 

 assistance of abundance of black bees bought in, and new 

 hives, I had by the month of July, in addition to my black 

 stocks, been successful in establishing sis fine colonies with 

 most prolific Ligurian queens at their head. 



I was quite appalled in the beginning of August to find 

 foul brood unmistakeably present, not only in the original 

 stock, but in four of the young hives. I was successful in 

 effecting a thorough cure of the population of the old stock, 

 by passing them twice through the "purgatorial process," 

 then introducing them into the combs of a good second hive, 

 from which the black bees had been previously removed. 

 The queen bred well at the end of the season, but unfor- 

 tunately died during the winter. I lost one of the young 

 queens from the continuous confinement necessary to effect; 

 a cure, a second from being neglected by the black bees to 

 which I purposed introducing her, and a third from being 

 totally deserted in my absence by her new subjects, while 

 caged, they preferring to transfer their allegiance from the 

 Italian to the black monarch of the adjoining stock, so that 

 this spring found me with only two Ligurian queens, the 

 one presiding over a particularly strong healthy colony, in a 

 set of Stewarton boxes, the other over a square straw frame- 

 hive. 



The traces of foul brood in the last-mentioned hive were 

 so slight, that I resolved to let it stand unmolested over the 

 winter in the hope that the long cessation from breeding 

 might tend to alleviate, if not stay, the plague, but finding 

 in the spring the fresh brood grouped all round the sus- 

 picious, I feared it might thereby be contaminated, and as 

 already mentioned in my remarks, on " The Opening Sea- 



