272 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



t September 21, 1876. 



Mrs. Peet. 3, M. Leno. Pullet.-l, Mrs. Peel. 2, Mrs. S. Browne. 3, M. Leno. 

 Hambttrghs.— Gold and Silver-spangled.— Cockerel — 1, W. Roberta. 2. J. Long. 

 S, J. Ward. Pullet- 1, W. Robert*. 2, J. Bee. S, W. Pinfold. Gold and 

 Silver-pencilled.— Cockerel.— I, J. Long. Pullet —1, W. Roberts. 2, J. Long. 

 AST otheb DI6TINXT Breed.— Cockerel.— 1. J. Long. 2, C. F. Herrieff S, C. 

 Sidgwick. Pullet— 1, C. F. Herrieff. 2. C. Sidgwick. 3. J. Long. Bantams.— 

 Cockerel— 1, M. Leno. 2, W. Ellis. S.W.Nichols. Pullet— 1, M. Leno. 2.W. 

 Ellis. 3, W. H. Nichols. Geese— 1. E. xnell. 2, J. L Stratton. 3, Mrs. 

 Deacon. Ducklings.— Aylesbury— I. T Kingsley. 2, E. Snell. 3, T. Holton. 

 Rouen.— 1, J. Gee. 2. E. Snell. 3, J. Long. Toreeys — Young.— I.E. H. Grims- 

 diek. 2 and 3, W. Nichols. Selling Classes.— Cock or Cockerel.— I, M. Leno. 

 2, F. Newbitt. 3, H. Yardley. Hens or Pullets — 1, T.Love. 2, H. Yardley. 3. 

 Mrs. E. Allsop. Drake, Gander, or Turkey Cock.—l, E. H. Grimsdick. 2, T. 

 Kingsley. 3, T. Holton. Ducks. Geese, or Hen Turkeys.— 1, T. Kingsley. 



PIGEONS.— Ant Distinct Vaeiett.— Cock or Hen.-l and 4, H. Yardley. 2, 

 W. Nottage. 3, T. w. Swallow. 



HONEY AND WAX. 



The statement of Professor Riley touching the question of 

 the production or manufacture of honey from the sweet nectar 

 of flowers is, in my opinion, both interesting and important 

 from a scientific point of view. The truth is so well told in his 

 statement that I will venture to repeat it here. " Bees," he says, 

 " do not extract honey ready-made from flowers, but make it. 

 The nectar lying in flowers could never be manufactured into 

 honey, no matter how manipulated by man, but is taken up by 

 the bees and passed through a state of semi-digestion and ex- 

 cretion, resulting in honey, yet still retaining in part the flavour 

 or perfume of the flowers from which the nectar has been ex- 

 tracted, by which we determine one kind of honey from another." 

 Honey, then, is a secretion of bees to some extent as well as 

 wax. This fact haB been well known by most of the bee-keepers 

 of Lanarkshire for sixty years. It was one of my first lessons, 

 well learned before I could master the multiplication table, and 

 ever since when I have been able to turn up a hive and examine 

 its combs convincing evidence in multiplied form has been before 

 me that the crude honey found in flowers and gathered by bees 

 is afterwards changed and converted into honey proper. After 

 having been gathered and disgorged it is re-swallowed, and 

 then passes through a process of preservation, in which it is 

 thickened and sweetened, " resulting in honey," as the professor 

 puts it. 



How much, then, is man indebted to the honey bee ! What 

 a life of toil and industry do we witness in a hive of bees ! 

 Where else can we find such lessons of cleanliness and comfort, 

 of freedom and fraternity — of an industry that is as active at 

 home as it is abroad, as active by night as it is by day — an in- 

 dustry that knows nothing of peeviBhneBS or f retfulness ? There 

 iB a world of wonders in a bee hive which the moat observant 

 sages of mankind will never compass or fathom. 



Wax is more distinctly a secretion or product of bees, inas- 

 much aB it is very unlike the honey from which it is secreted or 

 manufactured. The manufacture of wax by bees is a marvel 

 from the beginning to the end. The process is hidden, and is 

 likely to remain a secret. The results are evident. Bees can 

 seorete wax at will, and they commence building combs after a few 

 hours' notice. Without any pretensions to accuracy or certainty 

 I think the lamina or plates of wax whereof the combs are 

 built are produced by bees some three or four hours after they 

 have resolved to commence comb-building. The voluntary se- 

 cretion of wax is, I repeat, one of the wonderful things in the 

 economy of a hive of bees. The combs or wax produced by 

 bees are of different Bhades of colour ; one kind of honey yields 

 wax different in colour from that of another kind. Speaking 

 generally the wax from spring flowers is a shade darker — more 

 yellow than the wax produced in summer and autumn. Field 

 mustard (Sinapis arvenBis), which flowers in June, yields a wax 

 rather yellow, and the honey from this plant candies very readily. 

 The wax of white clover is not quite so white as that produced 

 from moorland honey. Treacle or common molasses yields a 

 very white wax. 



The remarks lately made by one of our intelligent correspon- 

 dents about the dark-coloured combs which were produced in 

 his supers by artificial feeding has led me to take up this ques- 

 tion of wax-production. In laying the foundations of combs, 

 and in attaching new comb to old dark-coloured comb, the bees 

 very often begin with materials rather grey and dirty-looking, 

 but before many inches of comb are built they use nothing but 

 pure wax. In covering the brood in dark-coloured combe they 

 discolour the lids they use in this work. They always temper 

 the colour of the lids of brood cells to correspond with the colour 

 of the combs. — A. Pettigrew. 



The Oldham Ornithological Society has just issued a 

 capital schedule of prizes for an exhibition of cage birds and 

 Pigeons, to be held on October 26th to the 30th. Cage birds 

 number no less than thirty-three classeB, with prizes of 15s., 10s., 

 and 5s. throughout the whole of the classes ; whilst twenty-one 

 classes are devoted to Pigeons, the prize money for which is £1 

 for first prize, and 10s. for the second in each class. The Secre- 

 taries are Messrs. Fleming and Bradbury, Oldham; and the 

 Judges, Messrs. G. J. Barnesby, Derby, and H. Allsop, Birming- 

 ham. The entries are announced to close October 16th. In the 



schedule it is stated that " exhibitors will be entitled to a ticket 

 of admission for the second day of the Show." 



BEITISH BEE KEEPEKS' ASSOCIATION. 



EXHIBITION OF BEES AT ALEXANDKA PALACE. 

 Leaving to expertB the full details and scientific review of 

 this interesting Show, it may be permitted for me as a dabbler 

 and mere novice to notice a few things which struck me as 

 worthy of note. Now first and foremost with regard to hives. 

 No one, I thick, could fail to remark how thoroughly the bar- 

 frame system has laid hold of the public, and how very much 

 the straw hives — not merely skeps, but those into the compo- 

 sition of which Btraw entered — have been superseded by wooden 

 hives. The notion entertained still by some bee-keepers that 

 the bees do not like wood has been overborne by the most con- 

 vincing testimony, that of experience ; and it is not, perhaps, 

 too much to say that in a few years they will be universally used 

 where the old method of killing the bees is not adopted. Coin- 

 cident with this is the attempt of those who supply hives to 

 combine this with economy. Mr. Abbott set the example with 

 his cottagers' hive, plain and useful at 3s. : this is unquestionably 

 the cheapest hive made. Messrs. Neighbour have them at 7s. &d., 

 and Mr. Lee exhibits a very good one with complete set of sec- 

 tional supers at 12s. Gd. The Hartlip hive, invented by the 

 Rev. T. F. Scott, is another cheap and good hive, and really as 

 far as I can see nothing better than such hives is required. Of 

 course any expense may be run into, but it is needlesF, and 

 these hives answer every purpose. Of hives a little more expen- 

 sive Mr. Abbott's with fixed legs seemed to me the best. 



Another advance Beems to be in the larger use of sectional 

 supers, of which several patterns were contributed by Mr. 

 Hunter, Mr. Abbott, Mr. Lee, and others, several coming from 

 America. Bee-keepers complain that they can get no market for 

 their honey, and it is difficult to dispose of supers weighing 15, 

 20, or 30 lbs., but when a piece of comb weighing about 2 lbs. 

 is displayed in a section of the super it is likely to meet with 

 a readier sale; in faot several bee-keepers have found this to be 

 the case ; and another laudable attempt is that of supplying 

 these supers at moderate prices, a point at which those whom 

 I have already named have been aiming. 



And will not bee-keepers see what can be done by the bar- 

 frame system by such men as Mr. Cowan, who from sixteen 

 stocks and five swarms has taken 1300 lbs. of Bplendid super 

 honey, besides several hundred pounds of run honey 1 and this 

 from no exceptional district, for I hardly think that Horsham 

 would come under that, character ; and like our own neighbour- 

 hood, I suppose after the limes are over there is no further 

 supply for the bees. I fancy from what I could gather that 

 those who have taken their hiveB to the heather have notreaped 

 much by it, as the cold wet weather of this month must have 

 seriously interfered with the bees. In the neighbourhood of 

 Weybridge I saw very few bees at work this week, and heather 

 abounds there. Many other supers were shown ; but those of 

 Mr. Cowan — two taken from the same stock, and upwards of 

 60 lbs. each — were certainly wonderful proofs of what may be 

 done. 



The rapid increase in the number of extractors, too, is notice- 

 able ; and here the palm must be given again to Mr. Abbott, who 

 in his Little Wonder has met all the requirements, and at the 

 moderate cost of 15s. Armed with this the apiarian can dispense 

 with all the trouble and mess of straining the combs — can, if he 

 carefully manipulates, drive all the honey out and return the 

 comb to the hive for the bees to fill again, or preserve for melt- 

 iDg down. When one recollects that the first of these imple- 

 ments introduced cost some £4 or £5, and that now for a few 

 Bhillings as good work can be done, we must see a proof of the 

 earneBtnees with which our leading apiarians are entering into 

 the race of catering for the bee-loving community at large. 



There were many most interesting adjuncts to the bee-keepers' 

 necessities, and it will net be the fault of either natives or 

 foreigners if bee-keeping is not carried out on scientific prin- 

 ciples and with successful results. There were bee traps— one 

 invented by Mr. Abbott, jun., made simply with the awns of 

 bearded grass, seemed simple and effective ; queen cages for 

 introducing queens into hives, simple contrivances, such as that 

 of Mr. Hunter's; a brush of asparagas for sweeping off the bees 

 into the hives ; quilt (by-the-by, this Beems to be making rapid 

 advances, and Mr. Abbott I find, who was the prime mover in, 

 it, has adopted house flannel instead of carpet) ; perforated zinc 

 for adapting instead of boards, through which workers can get 

 up, but no queen or drone can — all these were provided, besides 

 honey in large quantities, and one's only regret was that so few 

 persons were there to see them. It may be better on Saturday 

 and Monday. Altogether the Committee, who worked hard, 

 may be congratulated — at least so it seems to me — on this their 

 third Show.— D., Deal, 



Thib Association held their third annual Exhibition at the 

 Alexandra Palace on the 15th, 16th, and 18th inst., where a very 



