November 30, 1876. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



479 



side for the perching of the Pigeons ; thus they are constantly 

 exercised in the air, retiring at their pleasure to the room or 

 loft within. — [American Fanciers' Journal.) 



MOVEABLE versus FIXED COMBS. 



Your esteemed correspondent Mr. J. E. Briscoe recently gave 

 an interesting account of how he had reaped the large harvest 

 of 144 lbs. finest super honey from one Stewarton colony this 

 last season, and drew a comparison of the yield from such frame 

 hive with moveable combs, to the fixity and heterogeneous con- 

 tents of large straw skeps advocated by Mr. Pettigrew as the 

 ne plus ultra for successful bee-keeping. The soundness of Mr. 

 Briscoe's hypothesis has been called in question by Mr. Petti- 

 grew, who has repeatedly referred to me, and I desire to reply. 



I would premise at the outset that Mr. Pettigrew's persistent 

 efforts to dissever the usual sulphur-pit termination of the com- 

 mon skep system is worthy of all praise. That gentleman sayd 

 he has never condemned the Stewarton hive ; possibly not, but 

 what detracts much from the charm of his interesting com- 

 munications is a tendency, if I may U6e the expression, of in- 

 ferentially disparaging what he has had little or no experience 

 of. The frame-bive question being a case in point. The large 

 harvest of 1883 is probably what Mr. Pettigrew refers to as that 

 of 1864, when in the former capital season I reaped, as detailed 

 in this Jonrnal at the time, from one Stewarton colony ten 

 octagon supers weighing net somewhere close on 200 lbs. This 

 season from two such old colonies and two prime swarms hived 

 singly, and thanks to "mobilism," into empty-combed frames, 

 I harvested first four, then nine, last eight, in all twenty one 

 octagon supers free from one cell of pollen or yet brood. The old 

 colonies were quite independent of all that early summer feed- 

 ing of which Mr. Pettigrew tried with his straw hives, and 

 neither they nor yet the swarms had the slightest extraneous 

 aid whatever in acoomplisbiDg their task, saving narrow strips 

 of emboBsed wax sheets to ensure straight work and plenty of 

 warmth. The last four supers I may add were not sealed- out ; 

 and I subsequently regretted that, owing to the season coming 

 on us alleo much of a surprise, and much of the honey having 

 been given away in presents, I cannot give the weights with so 

 much exactness as did Mr. Briscoe, saving of what went to 

 market, over 2 cwts. finest snper honey. The best colony of 

 1876 gave nine supers against the ten of 1868. 



It is manifestly even more unfair to draw a comparison of the 

 capital harvest of 86 lbs. obtained by Mr. Fox from a straw 

 hive in Devonshire, and the 30 lbs. obtained by Mr. Briscoe 

 with his Stewarton in Staffordshire in the poor season of 1875, 

 as it is to contrast my harvest with that of the Carluke people. 

 These figures Bpeak as to district, not hives. L9t the bee-masters 

 with their hives change places, and see the different results. 

 Rather put it as a rule-of-threa question. If a straw skep yields 

 86 lbs. in south Devon, what would a Stewarton colony there 

 give ? To fairly compare results, one hive with another, it is 

 obvious they must occupy a common field. Mr. Pettigrew will 

 say this is mere advocacy, he wants " facts ;" I have pleasure in 

 adducing them. 



In the same poor season of 1875 there stood in my apiary on 

 stand No. 10, a swarm of the preceding year, hived in two 

 7-inch Stewarton boxes, and side by side on No. 11 a swarm of 

 the same year, located in a roomy straw skep, both possessing 

 queens of 1874, each having an overflowing population, and 

 being so well matched induced me to prevent No. 11 from 

 swarming and test the two together as depriving hives. Both 

 got full and began to build-out at the same time. The Stewarton 

 was nadired with a 4-inch octagon eke, and snpered as required ; 

 the straw hive was heightened also with first, a 4-inch circular 

 eke, and then another same depth. About the same time No. 10 

 took to the supers. The only top I could get to sit conveniently 

 on straw was a large Abingdon glass, and with a little frame 

 guide comb induced the bees to take possession at once, and 

 keeping it well covered-up with woollen, comb-building made 

 rapid progress, and at the close of the season the harvest gleaned 

 by the two was as follows : — 



No. 10. Stewarton .... 1 octagDn super, gross 23ilbs. 



1 „ „ 171 » 



.... 1 „ „ 1« „ 



.... 1 „ „ 12* „ 



No. 11. Straw step 1 Abingdon glass comb 



without stalfc and not sealed-out. . . . 21J lbs. gross. 



I expected the shortcoming of super honey from straw would 

 be greatly made up by supposed greater weight in the skep, 

 but juBt after removal of supers I chanced to receive a visit 

 from the Vice-President and then Secretary of the Caledonian 

 Apiarian Society, and on showing them round my apiary pointed 

 out the test hives, reporting the harvest as above, when it was 

 proposed to estimate their then respective weight3, and the 

 former gentleman kindly undertook the duty, and to my surprise 



pronounced the straw hive light and in want of immediate feed- 

 ing. He then turned his attention to the Stewarton colony, and 

 drawing it along the board, in his endeavour to raise the heavy 

 weight induced such a sortie from the triple entrance, the 

 Italians using their stilettos with sufficient vigour to put us all 

 to the right-about, and my good friend the President coming in 

 for bo terrible a share of the punishment, that should these 

 lines catch his eye, I have no doubt he still preserves a lively 

 recollection of my competitive hives. Mr. Pettigrew may say 

 he advocates the swarming, not the depriving, system. Would 

 that have bettered the matter? Suppose No. 11 had thrown a 

 couple of swarms there would have been no honey at all harvested 

 before even the accuBtomed autumnal feeding time came round. 

 Such would have shared the f ite of all swarms in our neighbour- 

 hood, unoared for and been dead, so exceedingly bad was the 

 season of 1875. 



When I perused Mr. Pettigrew's statement to the following 

 effect, " In Glasgow, whero 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 system 

 that helps greatly to meet the demand?" From passing fa- 

 miliarity witb. the appearance of the Glasgow honey warehouses, 

 I felt that that gentleman bad been most egregiously misin- 

 formed ; and as Mr. Briscoe bad not the same opportunity, from 

 nearness of residence felt it incumbent on me to collect a few 

 " facts." 



My first visit was to one of the oldest honey warehouses. 

 I found from the manager that when they had more of a mo- 

 nopoly there, turnover would be about three hundred boxes of 

 comb, against twenty to thirty pints of ran honey. Still they 

 did a large trade in comb, a little in French run honey, Scotoh 

 run honey being little asked for. The next party called upon 

 does a considerable wholesale as well as retail business. Esti- 

 mated his sales would be about two supers (38 lb-8). comb against 

 one pint (5 lbs.) of run houey. He had paid the grower on an 

 average for the last five years Is. Gd. per lb. for comb and 10(7. 

 for ruu honey. He did nothing in foreign. My third call 

 elicited a capital sale for honeycomb ; run honey they did little 

 in, saving a few glass bottles finest comb run by themselves, 

 west-end ladies being very fastidious about the cleanliness of 

 ran honey, preferring seeing it clear through glass. The fourth 

 merchant told me the figures in the Journal should have been 

 reversed. He Bold a little run honey in families for colds, 

 but for table use in Glasgow honeycomb was the correct thing. 

 So much for statistics, which require no comment. No doubt 

 " in the second city of the empire " a large quantity of ruu 

 honey must of necessity find its way into other channels, suoh 

 as the confectioners and drug stores ; but I am informed the 

 cheap foreign honey cask meets that demand. 



As Mr. Pettigrew very jastly remarks, "It is an important 

 question, and cannot be too fully diBCussed." But as I have 

 already encroached too much on valuable space with details, 

 must defer till next week a more general view of the question 

 at issue. — A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper. 



QUEEN BEES. 



The concluding paragraph in "B. & W.'s" article of Novem- 

 ber 10th, on tho exchange of queens, where he says, "Tho two 

 queens may have met, and the Italian proved herself the 

 stronger," leads me to pen these few lines to express a doubt 

 whether such an occurrence is at all necessary, or even likely to 

 occur, in order that the intruding queen should suffer th9 penalty 

 of death. The more I learn about baes the more conviction 

 forces itself on me, that many statements recorded and repeated 

 again and again about them are fallacious. I do not accuse 

 observers of wilfully deceiving, but some new or wonderful 

 occurrence is seen, or believed to be seen, when it is at once re- 

 corded as a habit of the bee. Mrs. Tupper has said " bees do 

 nothing invariably ; " nothing could be more true, and sometimes 

 they do things which at the time are to us wholly unaccountable. 

 To exchange a queen is a common operation with me, and my 

 experience is that, as a rule, to release one six or seven hours 

 after caging would be found a most dangerous proceeding. 

 Last moDth, when the weather was very cold and likely to con- 

 tinue so, I risked the introduction of two queens without any 

 ciging simply because I did Eot want the stocks chilled. The 

 first sto3k, which had been queenless some time, killed their new 

 sovereign ; the second, where I merely took out their own queen 

 and dropped the other in her place, accepted her all right, and 

 she lives still. Now, had my opinion been asked as to what 

 would occur I Bhould just have reversed the events. 



The introduction of a strange queen into a hive where one 

 already reigns, I do not believe troubles the latter whatever. I 

 have put in scores and find the result as follows : — The first bee 

 which discovers the intruder seizes her by the leg or wing and 

 holds on, and then comes another and another until she is 

 covered ; still the bees crowd on, holding to one another until a 



