October 31, 1878. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE 
AND COTTAGE GARDENTR. 341 
and Cage Birds. We remember a very good show there about 
five years ago, and hope that this revived one may be well 
patronised. On the 22nd and 28rd of the month the Kilmarnock 
Show will take place. The classification is one of the most 
extended and complete we have ever seen save at the greatest 
national shows. There are 42 classes for Poultry, 35 for Pigeons, 
and 19 for Cage Birds, 9 for Rabbits, and 2 for Cats. The entries 
close on November 9th. The Norwich Show is fixed for the 21st, 
22nd, and 23rd. The classification is, as in former years, very 
good. ‘There are special cups and prizes for members of the 
Society. On the 27th and 28th a West Kent Show is advertised 
to be held at Bexley Heath ; and on the same days the Show of 
the Rutland Agricultural Society at Oakham. This has long been 
a well-managed and popular institution. We regret to see that 
the pairs of hens so long seen there are no longer to appear, 
but single birds alone. Another poultry show will be held at 
Poole in January. It will be under the patronage and rules of 
the Poultry Club. 
— WE are continually hearing evidence of the spread of the 
poultry and Pigeon fancy both in the Old and New Worlds. 
Some Pouters from the celebrated lofts of Mr. and Mrs. Holmes 
of Bath were lately exported to Austria, and last week some of 
Mr. Cresswell’s Turbits started from their temporary abode near 
Bagshot for Boston, U.S. America. 
DESERVING of special notice at the Clonmel Agricultural 
Show were specimens exhibited by Robert Cooke, Esq., of three 
cuttings of Italian rye grass, with the seed saved from the second 
and third ; that saved from the first is generally worse than useless, 
as containing the seeds of weeds, &c.; that from the third crop 
was very inferior to the splendid sample saved from the second 
cutting. Many farmers were interested in seeing this marked 
distinction. The exhibition of other farm produce was very 
superior. 
— THE largest farm in the world is probably that which has 
just been purchased by a New York Joint Stock Company in 
Northern New Mexico; it covers 250,000 acres, and will be used 
for cattle and sheep raising. A good start has already been made 
with tive thousand improved American cattle and fifteen thousand 
Merino sheep. 
Tue Duke of Sutherland has presented a milch cow, and 
allowed sufficient pasture land for its keeping, to every small 
tradesman on his Trentham estates. 
—— WE are requested to state that the Ipswich Poultry Show 
wwill take place early in January next, instead of as advertised, 
due notice of which will be given. 
In the returns for the year 1877 the poultry in Ireland 
were enumerated in four classes. There are 751,809 turkeys, 
2,240,399 geese, 2,653,070 ducks, and 7,920,805 ordinary fowl, 
making a total of 13,566,083, or 53,417 fewer than the very large 
mumber in the preceding year’s return. It will be observed that 
there are three times as many geese as turkeys, but the proportion 
varies greatly in different parts. In Leinster and Ulster the 
turkeys are not very much less than half as many as the geese ; 
in Munster they are not near a third the number of the geese; ; 
and in Connaught they are less than a fifth of the number of 
geese. In the counties of Down and Dublin the turkeys and 
geese are almost equal in number—41,991 turkeys and 43,526 
geese, and 8872 turkeys and 8966 geese respectively. In the 
county of Meath the turkeys outnumber the geese, there being 
22.659 of the former and only 19,819 of the latter. Ducks and 
ordinary fowl appear to be more evenly distributed ; the former 
number about one in every five of the total poultry in Leinster 
and Connaught, one in six in Munster, and one in four in Ulster. 
Estimating the geese and turkeys at an average market price of 
3s. each,.and ducks and ordinary fowl at 2s. 6d. per pair, the 
poultry in Ireland at the enumeration in 1877 would represent a 
total value of £1,109,698. 
— ACCORDING to the Journal des Deébats, the number of 
horses in the principal countries of Europe is as follows :—Russia, 
21,570,000; Germany, 3,352,000; Great Britain, 2,255,000; Hungary, 
2,179,000; Austria, 1,367,000; and Turkey, 1,000,000. According 
to the same authority there are 9,504,000 horses in the United 
States; 4,000,000 in the Argentine Republic; 2,624,000 in Canada, 
and 1,600,000 in Uraguay. 
UNPRODUCTIVE BEE’S EGGS—IVY HONEY. 
AT page 287 of the current volume will be found a notice by 
me of a singular phenomenon which occurred here this autumn 
—namely,a young queen laying eggs during a period of six weeks 
which were unproductive. ‘ 
Ihave now to add—though it does not lessen the curiosity of 
the fact above mentioned—that within the last fortnight this 
same queen has laid eggs which have produced grubs. A quantity 
of brood was found in various stages of development in large 
portions of two combs. 
Can it be that this queen being unusually vigorous continued 
laying eggs during September, the usual rest month of the year 
(in places like this where no honey is found in the fields), and 
that the bees destroyed them as fast as they were laid, tired as it 
were of the labours of nursing, while the queen laid on unheeding 
the fate of her eggs? It may be observed that the resumption of 
breeding was simultaneous with the commencement of an unusu- 
ally good ivy honey season. My bees have been for several weeks 
as active in honey-gathering as in summer both early and late 
in the Gay. It is a sickly-tasted honey.—B. & W. 
BEE-KEEPING. 
THIS spring I had two straw hives ; one of them was stocked 
with condemned bees that I bought last autumn, but they only 
quarter filled the hive with comb. I fed them this spring, but 
they would not swarm; for three weeks they hung outside the 
hive like a large swarm. On June 29th I put on a super; they 
began at once to fill it, but did not leave the outside. As I had 
no eke to put under I placed a flat-top hive under the full one. 
July 8th I took off the super with 203 lbs. of beautiful honey- 
comb. On August 7th I drove the top hive into the bottom one, 
which was half full of comb. I obtained 30 Ibs. of run honey— 
504 Ibs. in all. The other hive, which was 15 inches by 10, only 
sent off one swarm, which in due course I supered with an Epps’s 
cocoa box. The stock hive I drove twenty-one days after it 
swarmed. From both hives I obtained upwards of 40 Ibs. of 
honey. In all I made £5 10s. 6d., besides what we used. £1 
I spent in sugar to feed with. I have £4 10s. 6d. in my 
pocket and three good hives of bees in my garden—not amiss for 
a start. I have no doubt the result would have been greater if 
the master of the straw hive had been at my elbow, as the master 
of the Stewarton apparently was at “J. R.’s.”. I have made many 
blunders, but practice makes perfect. I placed the brood comb 
from my best hive (there was a great quantity) into a small hive, 
and set it on top of the hive where the bees were, thinking they 
would hatch it out, but all the bees went up and took possession, 
I did not feed. them for fear they should build comb. When the 
brood was hatched I drove them back to their proper hive. I 
was more successful with the other hive. I fastened a piece of 
board and bored some holes in it, put in some pegs thick enough 
to keep the combs at proper distance and upright like toast ina 
rack, and placed it under the hive. The bees have built their 
comb to it beautifully. At any time I can turn up the hive and 
take away the board and pegs now the comb is fast. 
The hives are my own make, I never made any before nor saw 
any made. I have made one 16 inches by 10 with a moveable top, 
so that when I want to take the honey I can turn it on its crown, 
run a knife round the sides, lift it off leaving the combs fast to 
the crown. By running a knife between the comb and the crown 
I shall be able to secure every comb without breaking, what the 
“RENFREWSHIRE BEE-KEEPER” complains of so much at page 
252. If his cross-sticks had been made properly they would not 
have Gamaged the comb. J made mine straight, round, and very 
much tapered, the end that stood out an inch was square. When 
you take hold of them with pincers give a twist; the stick then 
comes out without damage.—ZJ. B., S. Yorkshire. 
STRENGTHENING STOCKS IN AUTUMN. 
EVERYONE is agreed that it is of the first importance to 
strengthen stocks in autumn. Stocks so strengthened, and just 
in proportion as they are strengthened, will (all other things being 
equal) be the first to breed in the spring, the first to swarm or to 
fill supers as the case may be, and will generally prove the most 
profitable in every respect. To secure this desirable object is 
the aim of all bee-masters; and accordingly at this time of 
year, when the ivy blossoms wake up the bees everywhere 
and stimulate the queens to recommence egg-laying, every effort 
is made to increase and prolong the stimulus in this direction. 
Hence more or less continuous feeding is going on in all apiaries. 
Hence the joining of weak populations, and the saving of bees 
from doomed stocks for uniting with those that are being strength- 
ened for future use. 
These several plans are all excellent in their turn. They are in 
full use here at this present moment. But this autumn we are 
trying another plan, which I recommend to the notice of the 
apiarian readers of this Journal : it can only be conveniently tried 
by bar-framists whose bars are all of the same size, as they ought 
to be in every apiary. Our new plan consists in the saving of 
condemned bees and utilising them by putting them temporarily 
into empty bar-framed hives, two or three lots of bees together in 
each hive, and stimulating them to breed in empty worker combs 
previously adapted to the frames. At the end of twenty days, or a 
little earlier, the frames will be taken out, and such as are filled 
with brood will be transferred to the hives which it is desired to 
strengthen for the coming year. It is obvious how great an 
addition to the youthful population of a hive may be made in 
this way. It is far better than merely adding the populations of 
doomed stocks, among which are sure to be found numbers of 
