August 15, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
141 
minute details of each department as to who gained prizes, &c., 
we prefer giving a few general observations as to the most salient 
points of the Exhibition. p j : 
We were particularly struck with the almost universal adoption 
of modern bar-frame hives. Not only has the straw skep disap- 
peared from the apiarians’ catalogue, but the modifications of it, 
as in the old Woodbury, have also vanished, and wood is now the 
universal material of which hives are made. Improvements on 
these are taking place every year, and in the Stewarton, the Phil- 
adelphia (Messrs. Neighbour), the Standard (Abbott), Lee’s and 
others we seem to have attained all that is needed. Hach year 
has witnessed some improvement, but after all Abbott’s, which 
again took the first prize, leaves nothing to be desired. The wire 
pin to the boxes has been superseded by the broad shoulder, 
mntking it much firmer, and various internal improvements have 
been added. An ingenious plan of shutting off the bees, so as to 
prevent swarming, by a zinc perforated frame seemed to be very 
ingenious, for a very general complaint this year was that the 
bees would swarm. Very few large supers were exhibited, and 
super honey was by no means plentiful ; and this is one of the 
things which confirm cottagers in their prejudices. : 
Another prominent point was the universal use of the quilt. 
When Mr. Abbott introduced it some years ago it was denounced 
by some influential bee-masters as an American invention of no 
use whateyer, yet now we find it in nearly every hive, and expe- 
vience has only confirmed the good opinion expressed concerning 
it and suggested improvements. Formerly a piece of carpeting 
was used, but it was found that the bees disliked the woollen 
material and picked it to pieces, making a mess with it, as they 
will do with tape if the combs be tied in with it at any time. 
Hence the best fabric for putting next to the bars is the hair cloth 
which is used for covering the strainers used in kitchens. It is 
hard and yet porous. On this may be placed carpeting or any 
other woollen material, such as house flannel, which will keep the 
hives warm during the winter. It is very convenient, too, for 
examining the hives at any time; and when they have to be fed 
a hole is made in the centre, on which the stand for holding the 
feeding bottle is placed. : 
Then again there was a very general use of the zinc adapters, 
by which when supers are placed on the hives the bees have 
access to them through the perforations in the zinc, which are of 
such a size that the workers can alone get up, the drones and the 
queen being unable to get through. Latterly the oblong perfo- 
zations seem to be more in yogue, but they hardly seem to be so 
effective as the round. There seems to be more possibility of the 
queen and drones getting through, and moreover it does not rub 
off the pollen as the round does ; but it must be noted that it 
does sometimes happen that the bees will not return, and I have 
found in one of my supers this year a good quantity of dead bees. 
Hence some apiarians adopt the plan of cutting a small hole in 
the super to let the bees go out if they like and carry out their 
dead. Why this should happen we are at a loss to conjecture, for 
in other hives they work up and down most freely and seem to 
find no difficulty ; but we know how stupidly bees when they get 
into a greenhouse will persist in flying up and down the glass and 
eventually killing themselves, although the sash in the very next 
division may be wide open ; but these exceptional cases do not 
detract from the great usefulness of the zine adapter. 
Equally general is the use now of the sectional supers ; these 
were shown by Messrs. Abbott, Lee, and Horne, Mr. Lee taking 
the prize for the best and cheapest. These supers are yery valu- 
able, containing from 1 fb. to 2 Ibs. of comb each, and so presenting 
comb honey in a saleable form to the public, and thus meeting one 
of the great drawbacks to bee-farming in this country. There is 
a yast quantity of trash imported under the name of Narbonne, 
Californian, and other honey, of which a great portion is little 
better than syrup, and this is sold so cheaply that home-made 
honey is not easily got rid of. When people go to Switzerland 
they are delighted to find miel en rayon on the breakfast table, 
but when they return to England honey in the comb is looked 
upon as “bilious,” or something of that kind, and so refused. 
Why do not our large pauper schools use it for the children instead 
of butter ? and if some eminent physician would only act as a bell 
wether and proclaim honey in the comb to be an excellent thing 
for the complexion the family would soon follow, and we should 
find it then on every breakfast table throughout the country. 
These sectional supers are excellent for the purpose of sale. Many 
persons would hesitate to buy supers of 20 Ibs. or 30 Ibs., but these 
handy littie boxes are just the thing to take home without any 
bother,and I have tio doubt they are destined to supersede all others. 
It was noticeable, too, that all the toy adjuncts of bee-keeping 
hhave yanished. There are now no elaborate bee houses with first, 
second, and third storeys ; no pagoda-like structures suggestive of 
the yery essence of cockneyism. All is now utilitarian, but not at 
the expense of neatness. Nothing can be neater than the hiyes 
of Messrs. Abbott, Lee, and others, but it is at once seen that 
the object is use not ornament ; and as they are now made with 
moyeable covers each one can stand by itself protected from the 
weather, and thus not so exposed to the depredations of wax 
u cth, spiders, mice, &c., as when they are in houses. 
In the tent the manipulation of bees according to the new 
method was fully explained by Mr. John Hunter, while Mr. 
Abbott and other bee-masters showed how easily bees were 
managed. Driving, uniting, transferring, and all the various 
methods adopted by modern bee-masters were shown, much to 
the astonishment of the visitors, many of whom evidently seemed 
to think that there was some special means adopted to prevent 
the bees from stinging. Ligurian and British bees were also 
shown, and an admirable observatory hive by Mr. Brice Wilson 
attracted general observation. There were two exhibits desery- 
ing especial notice ; one a Portuguese hive, exhibited by the Rev. 
J. F. Scott, an experienced bee-master, and which is of the same 
kind as that described by Virgil in the “Georgics,” and some 
honeycomb made by bees in the Strand—partly artificially fed, 
partly gathered from the flowers onthe Embankment. Altogether 
the Show was a great success,so much so that it is, we believe, 
in contemplation to repeat it next year in the same place. We 
should be sorry to add a word to damp the ardour of our friends, 
but as yet do not see that we have made any inroad on the 
cottagers, who do not appear to have abandoned the old straw 
skep and the sulphur pit ; as yet it is the few who have seen the 
advantage of the modern system. 
DRIVEN BEES AND SUGAR-FED STOCKS. 
“A. W.8.” asks, “ When is the best time to drive the bees of 
old stocks with a view to take their honey?” As many other 
correspondents have been of late asking questions on the subject 
of driving bees it may be well if we take up the subject in a 
general way, and go over the ground in these notes. 
For ten years we have not lost an opportunity of commending 
sugar-fed stocks of bees, and now we have the satisfaction of 
knowing that our commendations haye induced many working 
men to gather together the condemned bees of their neighbour- 
hoods by first driving and hiving them, and then feeding them 
into stocks. Many of the men who thus commenced bee-keeping 
are in the yan of the advancing hosts of British bee-keepers. Ex- 
perience, which is the shortest way to knowledge and success, 
has put them in the front rank of practical apiarians and made 
them what they are. Many of our readers who haye not yet 
driven bees, or united swarms, or fed them into stocks, have only 
to begin with a will, for all who do so succeed beyond their 
expectations. 
In answer to “ H. W.S.,” who wants to know the best time to 
drive bees from old stocks, we haye to say that nobody can 
answer the question with any degree of certainty, for seasons and 
districts differ much, as well as systems of management. For 
instance, bees on the moors in August gather honey fast and set 
thousands of eggs, whereas those not on the heather generally eat 
more honey than they gather in August, kill their drones, and 
cease to breed for the season. If honey is the first and only con- 
sideration the best time to drive bees is when they begin to eat 
more honey than they gather—in other words, when their hiyes 
become lighter. Bees on the clover, generally speaking, begin to 
lose weight early in August, and on the moors early in September. 
| But the question of brood and its condition in hives has to be con- 
sidered, as it is important, for the bees only that are hatched in 
autumn survive the winter, and early driving may destroy much 
unhatched brood. When it is meant to feed the driven bees into 
stocks it should be known and well understood that early driving 
is advantageous to the swarms, for in August they build combs 
faster and breed more readily and abundantly than they do in 
September and October. It is easy to get driven bees by artificial 
feeding to-build combs and fill them with brood in the warm 
month of August when pollen is abundant. As autumn adyances 
the disposition to build combs and hatch brood becomes less, and 
hence the greater difficulty of creating good stocks late in the 
season. Bee-keepers, however, possessing a fair share of shift and 
thrift can surmount the greatest difficulties of management. If 
hiyes marked for honey be found full of bees and brood at the 
commencement of August four-fifths of the bees could be driven 
with the queens from each of them into empty hives, and one- 
fifth left in them to hatch the brood ; thus stocks could be created 
in August, and the brood of the honey hives hatched by the re- 
maining bees. The remoyal of the swarms from the honey hives 
would save much of the honey from being eaten, for bees consume 
a great deal in August. In our practice we do not follow this 
plan, though we are miserly in our treatment of autumn brood. 
In taking honey we generally drive several hives at the same time. 
and drive the bees wholly out of the honey hives. All their combs 
with brood in them are speedily and carefully cut out and placed 
in an inverted empty hive, some on their edges, some on their 
broadsides, some one way, and some another, but kept asunder by 
little bits of wood, so that bees can move and be hatched amongst 
them ; then we throw a swarm or half a swarm amongst them to 
hatch the brood, and thus a large and invaluable stock of young 
bees is got from refuse combs to enrich stocks for winter and 
spring ; a board, of course, is placed oyer the combs and bees in 
the inyerted hive till all the broodis hatched. The reader willsee 
at once that by this treatment there is no destruction of life, no 
