October 10, 1878. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 287 
moulted, then the seed will not destroy the colour produced with 
cayenne. : f ; 
2, To preserve the high colour of the birds is it necessary to 
continue the diet of cayenne and egg each time that they moult ? 
Each time the birds moult it is necessary that the cayenne diet 
be adopted, or the birds will moult of a pale hue. 
3, Is the plumage of the young birds any brighter for the 
parents having been fed on cayenne pepper? No. However 
much pepper the parent birds may have partaken of, it has no 
effect whatever upon the young unless the pepper is supplied to 
the old birds at the time the young are being brought up in the 
nests. 
4, After being fed for eight weeks on cayenne pepper ought the 
high colour of the Canary to have fully commenced, and can it 
then return to its ordinary food of canary seed, groundsel, &c.? 
In reply to the first portion of the question, much depends upon 
what ages the birds are when the cayenne diet is first given. If 
the birds have moulted cayenne pepper will have no effect ; but 
if they have not moulted, and you commence with the pepper at 
the proper age, the effect of it will be seen in less than half the 
time named. , i 
We may also further remark: When commencing with the 
cayenne food, consisting of pepper, biscuit, and egg, do not let 
the ages of your birds exceed seven weeks. By the time the birds 
attain the ages of sixteen or seventeen weeks they should throw 
off the whole of their feathers except the wings and tails, which 
do not cast until the following year. If during the moulting 
period the birds are taken off the cayenne diet and supplied with 
seed and green food the effect of the stimulating diet will be at 
once checked, and the bird’s plumage will become patchy in colour. 
During the pepper-moulting seed and green food will counteract 
the power of the cayenne. The more pepper birds partake of the 
higher they will become in colour during moulting. The purer 
the pepper and the higher the colour the greater the effect. More 
care should be exercised as regards cleanliness than when birds 
are moulted upon seed. Witha pepper diet they not only increase 
the soiling of the cage bottoms and perches, but the birds become 
clog-footed, and their wings and tails likewise get soiled, unless 
the birds have free access to a shallow bath to wash and splash 
about in—Ger0. J. BARNESBY. 
VARIETIES. 
THE annual Dairy Show of the British Dairy Farmers’ Associa- 
tion opens this day (Thursday) at the Agricultural Hall, Londcn, 
and continues for four days, £1500 being offered in prizes for cows, 
heifers, and bulls. The entries in these classes number 232, all 
breeds being represented. Goats exceed the number of entries of 
last year. Cheese and butter classes all well filled, every known 
variety being on view. American Cheddars weighing more than 
halfa ton. Poultry and Pigeons : two thousand pens, being three 
times the number of previous years.’ Butter-making and cheese- 
making will be carried on each day in the Show by country dairy- 
maids. Models, plans, and drawings of dairy homesteads : eleven 
competitors. Dairy utensils, fittings, and vehicles in competition for 
prizes and medals. The general stalls are decidedly above the 
ayerage. Amongst the principal exhibitors are Her Majesty the 
Queen, the Baroness Burdett Coutts, Lady Gwydyr, the Hon. Mrs. 
Baillie Hamilton, the Earl of Stamford and Warrington, the Earl 
ef Rosslyn, Lord Chesham, the Hon. H. Brougham, the Hon. and 
Rey. F. Dutton ; the Revs. H. R. Peel, R. Watson, and G. Gilbert ; 
John Walters, Esa., M.P. ; Jas. Colman, Esq., M.P.; Capt. Norman 
Hill, George Simpson, Esq. ; R. Myddleton Biddulph, Esq. ; Drs. 
Snell, Angier, and Crisp; St. John Ackers, Esq.; R. Stratton, 
Esq. ; H. Lingwood, Esq.; J. N. Matthews, Esq.; George F. Bur- 
neli, Esq.; R. R. Fowler, Esq., &c. The Show opens at 10 a.m. 
and closes at 10 P.M. and is worthy of extensive patronage. 
Hon. anp Rey. F. G. DurTon writes :—“ Will you let me 
say that I have made it a condition of collecting for the £10 cup 
for Black Reds at Oxford that skinned birds shall be ineligible ?” 
Atv the late meeting of the Royal South Bucks Agricul- 
tural Association held at Datchet, the Prince Consort’s silver cup 
of the value of 20 guineas, given by the Queen for root crops, was 
awarded to Mr. G. Botham, Wrexham ; Mr. Ives, Langleys, taking 
the second prize—a piece of plate of the value of 10 guineas, pre- 
sented by Mr. N. G. Lambert, M.P. The members of the Society 
dined in the evening at the Royal Hotel, Slough. 
—— A WELL-ORDERED FARM, well-chosen stock, comfortable 
buildings, a neatly kept garden, roadway or entrance-way ; gates 
well hung, fences well kept, shade trees, ornamental shrubbery, 
paint without and whitewash within—all these are worth more to 
a farmer in money value than a few hundred dollars carefully 
scraped together and jealously hoarded and loaned to needy neigh- 
bours at interest. No investment pays so wellas money judiciously 
spent in farm improvements. Draining wet land will pay 50 to 
100 per cent. on its cost every year; good stock will pay equally 
well; good roads will return their cost every year; a gate will 
saye its cost in a short time; a good feuce may save its whole 
cost in one night; a well-kept garden, a neat lawn, orchard and 
shade trees, which need not cost $100, have added ten times that 
amount to the value of a farm, and the comfort and self-respect 
gained through the outlay for these and from their possession are 
worth more than the cost.—(New York Times.) 
QUEEN BEE LAYING UNPRODUCTIVE EGGS. 
A cURIOUS phenomenon has come wnder our notice here, which, 
so far as I am aware, has not been observed before among the 
curiosities of apiarian science. A young queen hatched this sum- 
mer after a.swarm became the parent of a large hive full of bees, 
both before removal to the vicinity of heather on the Mendips and 
during the stay of the hive there—a period of six weeks. About 
the 16th of August a bar-frame was taken out of the centre of 
the hive for examination, and was found to be full of brood of all 
ages. Early in September, three or four weeks later, no brood 
whatever was found in the hive, but a quantity of eggs in four 
or five combs. On Thursday, September 19th, the hive was again 
overhauled, but none of the eggs had been hatched ; and finally 
on examination yesterday, October Ist, the same state of things 
was found continuing, with this difference that eggs were seen in 
only two of the combs. Now how is this to be accounted for ? 
On the principle of parthenogenesis these eggs ought to have 
produced drones—that is, supposing the July-hatched queen to 
have been lost by accident and a younger queen to have been 
reared since the 16th of August, after the general destruction of 
drones throughout the apiary; but that the queen should con- 
tinue to lay eggs which produce no life at all is what I consider 
a very unusual phenomenon. I have supposed it possible that a 
young queen was born in the month of August to supply the 
place of the July-hatched mother bee, but there is no evidence 
whatever of any such queen haying been reared as would have 
existed in the shape of royal cells among the combs. Not one 
such, however, was seen. If there was no loss of the July queen 
the phenomenon is still more curious, for then we have to account 
for the hitherto prolific mother ceasing to rear brood while still 
laying quantities of eggs apparently devoid of all vitality. It 
must be added that continuous feeding has been going on in this 
hive for nearly three weeks, and the hive is very populous and as 
active and content (pollen-gathering too) as any other stock of 
bees in the apiary. This feeding was designed to supply the 
place of a quantity of honey of which the stock was plundered, 
some of which was extracted by an extemporised slinger, with a 
view to the return of the emptied combs.—B. & W. 
ARTIFICIAL COMB FOUNDATIONS. 
AFTER fifteen years’ experience and manufacture of the above 
most useful apiarian appliance I can fully endorse all your excel- 
lent contributor “B. & W.” says in its favour. The perfect 
straightness of comb it ensures is most valuable to the storifier, 
causing the various sections of his every colony to blend together 
as intimately as if they were an inseparable whole. Shortly after 
its introduction a keen Ayrshire apiarian carried here a young 
swarm for the Itaiian fertilisation of its queen. So neatly and 
securely had he attached his guide, after the manner described by 
mein “Our Letter Box” last week, that it bore the weight and 
heat of the bees themselves and the jolts and jars of a consider- 
able railway journey and hand carriage several miles to and from 
the respective stations, arriving in the most perfect condition.— 
A RENFREWSHIRE BEE-KEEPER. 
EXCESSIVE SWARMING. 
I HAD a hive of bees (in one of Neighbour’s improved cottage 
hives), which swarmed in June of this year. I put them intoa 
hive, also Neighbour’s, but they returned to the parent hive in 
the afternoon of the same day. They swarmed again next day 
and were put into the rejected hive, but returned to the old one 
in about an honr’s time. Two or three days afterwards two 
swarms came out, one very large, the other small, containing 
perhaps about a quart of bees. The small one was put into a 
straw skep, the other into the Neighbour ; both stopped this time 
and began work at once. The large swarm is now so heavy that 
I cannot lift it ; the small hive is half full of comb, the bees have 
increased to about twice the quantity, they have taken 12 Ibs. of 
sugar and are still storing it away. So far, all well. Now for 
the parent hive. After the swarms were gone I began to think 
of getting a little honey, so I placed a large super, covering all 
three holes on the top. The bees constructed three combs and filled 
them with honey, but bad weather coming on they could not get out 
much, so they carried it down below. A fortnight ago I examined 
it. I could not lift the hive, and of course there was nothing in 
the super, but I congratulated myself that I should have two 
good hives to super and the skep to breed from next year if I 
can keep it. Judge, then, my astonishment this morning, Septem- 
ber 30th, when I found not a bee in the old hive and half the 
honey gone. The strong swarm which stands close to it seems 
heayier, and I suspect the honey is there. But where are the 
