November 9, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



417 



9, J. W. Barker. 3, G. Cotton. Blue-ehequer.— 1, G. W. Flanagan. 2, J. w. 

 tiarker. 



MOVEABLE versus FIXED COMBS. 



Mb. J. E. Beiscoe of Albrighton has lately given us an 

 account of his succeBS in bee-keeping with a Stewarton hive, and 

 made some remarks on straw and bar-frame hives. His success 

 has been very remarkable and gratifying, and I trust that the 

 model he has held up to view will be copied if not excelled by 

 other apiarians. It is encouraging to know that Mr. Briscoe has 

 taken 144 lbs. of Buper honey from a Stewarton hive in 1876. 

 The " Renfbewshibe Bee-keeper " has also been very suc- 

 cessful this year with a hive of the same kind and managed on 

 the same system of storifying. The total amount of super honey 

 which he obtained was great and encouraging. I am thankful 

 for the reportB cf their success, and hopo that the readers of the 

 Journal will be favoured with reports of future success equally 

 stimulating. 



In contrasting the straw hive with the bar-frame hive I fear 

 Mr. Briscoe has suffered his enthusiasm to carry him a little 

 beyond the line of fair deaiiog. He says — "Although all the 

 scientific apiarians of Enrope and America have adopted some 

 modification of the bar or bar-frame hive, it has at length been 

 discovered that a large straw tkep with fixed combs, made 

 doubly secure by transverse stick?, and the ultimate destruction 

 of the bees by sulphur (which is in the majority of instances 

 involved in this mode of management) to obtain their treasures, 

 is the tie plus ultra of bee-keeping when large harvests of honey 

 and wax are to be seenred." It pains me exceedingly to quote 

 this sentence, and I am sorry that Mr. Briscoe has written it, 

 for the readers of the Journal op Horticulture, if not all the 

 advanced kee-keepers of Great Britain, know that the discovery 

 (if it is a discovery) which he alludes to is about one hundred 

 yearB old, and that I am neither an advocate nor a patron of 

 sulphuring bees. Another enlightened apiarian, who well knows 

 that I have done more perhaps than any other person in these 

 realms to expose the folly of destroying bees by sulphur, has 

 tried to connect my name and system with the brimstone pit. It 

 is too late in the day for anybody to succeed in such attempts. 

 The destruction or disuse of the Bulphur pit is only a question 

 of time, and I am sure if Mr. Briscoe and others will come to 

 our aid in trying to stamp it out of existence they will do some 

 real service to bee-keeping. Many misleading remarks about 

 me and what is called my system I let pass without noticing 

 them publicly, and it has been with considerable reluctance that 

 I have now noticed Mr. Briscoe's remark, and I sincerely hope 

 that it will not be necessary for me to do so again. 



I now come to notice the argument of his letter and the com- 

 parison he makes. Is it a fact " that all the scientific apiarians 

 of Europe and America have adopted some modification of the 

 bar or bar-and- frame hive?" In a recent number of this Journal 

 Mr. J. H. Eldridge of Norwich informs us that he " recently 

 received a letter from an aged Swiss clergyman, M. de Gelieu, a 

 bee-keeper of great experience — sixty years, a son of the author 

 of ' Le Conservateur des Abeiles. ' " This Swiss clergyman, in 

 answer to Mr. Eldridge's letter says — " The great question of 

 the day in our Switzerland, as in France, G-ermany, and America, 

 is that of mobiliBm or fixiBm — i.e., moveable or fixed combs. 

 Mobilism has the incontestable advantage of offering facilities 

 for theoretical experiment and the formation of artificial 

 swarms; but is it superior or even equal to fixism with regard 

 to the production of honey? I doubt it a little, because bees do 

 cot like to be disturbed in their labours, which always occurs more 

 or less when moveable frames are used." If this Swiss gentle- 

 man is correct the bar-frame system is on its trial in E urope 

 and America, and it is a question whether it be finally adopted 

 or not. Meanwhile I should be glad if many who use straw 

 hives would introduce the bar system for the sake of experi- 

 ment, and give it a fair trial. Some of my friendB have already 

 done so, and now cling to the straw hive with greater confidence 

 than ever. 



In some few instances to my knowledge the Stewarton hive 

 has yielded grand results, and I am not aware that I have ever 

 written or spoken a word in condemnation of it. Some six years 

 ago I suggested an enlargement of this hive, and this suggestion, 

 which appeared in the pages of this Journal, gave great offence 

 to a gentleman who sells the Stewarton hive. In 1864, if I 

 remember rightly, the " Renfbewshibe Bee-keeper " favoured 

 the readers of our Journal with an account of his Buccess that 

 season with a Stewarton. The late Mr. Woodbury sent the 

 number containing this account to me. The results were so 

 great that my faith staggered on reading them, but believing 

 every word of the report of the Renfrew success, I set myself 

 to the task of comparing it with results obtained in an adjoin- 

 ing county — namely, that of Lanark, in the same year. I re- 

 member I found it very difficult to decide which was the greater 

 success. At Carluke, in Lanarkshire, the late Mr. Reid obtained 

 from a Btock hive a gross weight of 328 lbs. in 1864. The old 

 hive was 96 lbs. ; first swarm, 160 lbs., and second swarm was 

 72 lbs. These, of course, were in straw hivea. Since 1864 I 



have been gathering the best results of the system and present- 

 ing them annually to the British public. In 1874 Mr. Geo. 

 Campbell, in Aberdeenshire, had a gross return of 373 lbs. from 

 a stock hive. All argumentation and advocacy in favour of this 

 or that hive, or this or that system, will not go far without facts 

 or results. It is well known that facts remain facts whatever 

 may be said of them; and if I have been a successful advocate 

 of the straw hive I owe my succbbs to the facts of the Bystem. 

 Mr. Briscoe has told us what his Stewarton hive did in 1875, 

 " the worst season known for twenty years." It gave about 

 30 lba. of fine honey. Surely Mr. Briscoe has not forgotten that 

 a straw hive gave Mr. George Fox a super of honeyoomb 86 lbs. 

 weight, which beat all comers at the Crystal Palace Exhibition 

 of 1875. 



Mr. Briscoe says that " Mr. Pettigrew justly observes that 

 bar-frames can never help bees, but seems to have failed to 

 discern that they do most materially help bee-masters." I have 

 not failed in this matter, for I have often frankly and freely said 

 that bar-frames are very useful in scientific research and for 

 taking a bar of honejeomb now and then. Mr. Briscoe's ad- 

 mission that they cannot help bees covers the whole ground 

 that I contend for, and I fancy that some of his school will not 

 be quite satisfied with his admission. One thing Mr. Briscoe 

 and others should bear in mind, that supers of honeycomb are 

 not sought by all bee-farmers. Many of the best and most 

 scientific bee-farmers keep bees for honey, not for honeycomb. 

 In Glasgow, where most of the octagon boxes of comb from the 

 Stewarton hives are sold, there is a demand for twenty times 

 more run honey than there is for comb. If Mr. Briscoe lived in 

 the neighbourhood of Glasgow, the best market in the world for 

 run honey, would he condemn the hives and Bystem that helps 

 greatly to meet the demand? We have no demand for honey- 

 comb in this neighbourhood to be compared to the demand for 

 run honey. My run honey sells as fast as it is jarred up at 

 Is. 3d. per lb. There is a great deal to be said on both sides. I 

 commend the consideration of the subject to the bee-keepers of 

 Great Britain. It is an important question, and cannot well be 

 too fully discussed; and I do not see why the question cannot 

 be discussed calmly and fairly without the ubo of personalities 

 and misrepresentations. Let us all do what we can to spread 

 knowledge, and thus diepel darkness. — A. Pettigbew. 



BEES AND THEIR STORES. 



This time last year we were all bewailing the unhappy condition 

 of our hives, which, left to themselves, were more than usually 

 populous and poverty-stricken. Now we are equally unfortunate 

 in a contrary Btate of affairs — bees few and combs full of honey. 

 Nothing could more thoroughly exemplify the advantage of 

 frame hives over those with fixed combs. My own hives, from 

 which I took all the honey two months ago, have now teeming 

 populations and abundance of brood in all stages, and are weli 

 provisioned for the winter — the result of continuous feeding. 

 Some straw skeps which I had an opportunity of examining a 

 few days ago, and which had been left undisturbed, I found full 

 cf honey, few bees to consume it, and no brood. The cause 

 was evident — the workers had brought home so much honey 

 that little room was left in the hive for breeding ; and as this 

 has been the case ever since June or July, it follows that the 

 population could not possibly be numerous, all the bees born 

 prior to that time having been long since dead. 



The proBpect for the future is not encouraging, the survival of 

 the stock till spring being mainly dependant on the number of 

 young bees reared ; and this again (food being abundant) at all 

 times is ruled by the space of comb-Burface which the congregated 

 bees can keep warm. Conditions being favourable the queen 

 will breed all the year round. I have noted brood in my hives 

 during every one of the last twelve months. The prudent bee- 

 master will do well to aBsist his stocks to attain the condition 

 most favourable to increase, for without young blood the stocks 

 must perish, as every bee now in the hives, except the queens, 

 will, in the natural order of things, be dead before the flowers 

 of May appear. Mr. Pettigrew, I know, disputes this, but any 

 observant man who has worked with Ligurians cannot fail to 

 have had positive proof of it by the total change of variety 

 which invariably takes place on the substitution of an alien 

 queen. I yesterday (November lBt) introduced in my apiary 

 eight Ligurian queens to black stocks, and have not a shadow 

 of a doubt that, provided the stock survives, by May every bee in 

 the hives will be gay with the golden bands. The maxim that 

 " unity is strength " is a very valuable one for bee-keepers. Two 

 weak stocks now separate will surely die, united they will pro- 

 bably live and increase. Therefore I say, See to your stocks, and 

 if necessary make what may seem a present sacrifice into a 

 future benefit by uniting them. — John Hunter, Baton Bise, 

 Baling. 



On the 27th ult. at Abbot's Hill, Homel Hempat-eaa, on the 

 invitation of the Rev. Herbert Peel (a nephew of the great 

 statesman), at a harvest festival, Mr. John Hunter gave to the 



