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JOURNAL OF HOETICULTUEE AND COTTAGE GABDENEE. 



[ December 7, 1871. 



The letter-press speaks of fowl-honee and yard, of food, 

 eggs, sitting, &e., but as there is nothing new, no remark is 

 called for, save that all is well put together. Then the book 

 proceeds with the breeds of fowls, Tarkeys, Ducks, and Geese, 

 with a final chapter on diseases. It is emphatically and espe- 

 cially a " pretty" book, and well suited as a present to a lady ; 

 and if the lady had no taste for poultry before she saw this 

 pretty book, the pretty pictures, and the pretty reading, and 

 the pretty outside, would, unless I greatly mistake, turn the 

 lady into a poultry-fancier. — Wiltshire Bectok. 



HEATING A SMALL AVIARY. 

 I HAVE turned to the number of the Journal referred to in a 

 letter from " A Subscriber " for further information on the 

 subject of his query, as his last communication scarcely put 

 me in possession of all the details. Of the merits or demerits 

 of gas stoves and boilers I know nothing, nor have I had any 

 experience in the heaiiag of aviaries, and, therefore, am as 

 much in the dark as "A Subsceiber" himself on some points on 

 which he seeks enlightenment. Bat I can reply confidently 

 to the one question, as to whether it will be safe to put a beating 

 apparatus in the compartment of the aviary occupied by the 

 birds if a chimney be provided " to carry off the products of com- 

 bustion ? " — Perfectly safe, if that condition be complied with. 



Aviary G-aa Stove. 



And with regard to the method of heating, I do not see any 

 necessity for a complicated or expensive apparatus. A large 

 room can be heated by simply inserting a common gas-burner 

 in the mouth of an ordinary cast-iron rain-water pipe. We 

 call them down-corners. The pipe must be placed with the 

 lower end about a foot from the ground and inclined at an 

 angle of about 45°, taking care that the heated air and products 

 of combustion- are conveyed outside the room into some re- 

 ceptacle not exposed to draughts, as any down-draughts will 

 extinguish the light and cause unpleasant results. I have 

 Been a roomy office heated in this way by a single burner 

 (and a small burner too) attached to a pipe with a twist- about- 

 every-way joint, and heated so rapidly that the gas, though 

 turned on full at first, had soon to be reduced to a pressure so 

 Blight that it was difficult to imagine so small a flame could 

 produce such results. The little gas stove of my Canary room 

 is an adaptation of the same contrivance. A sheet-iron 

 cylinder, about 2 feet high and 5 or 6 inches in diameter, 

 perforated with four large holes at the bottom to admit of a 

 continued supply of air, stands in a comer of the room over a 

 common bat's-wing burner fastened on the floor. A stout tin 

 chimney is inserted on one side of the top of the cylinder, and 

 continued across the room to the opposite wall, through which 

 it passes into an empty space under the roof of my house, 

 where all noxious fumes are tflectually dispersed. This is all 

 the apparatus I have, and it does its work well, is quick in its 

 action, and can be regulated to a nicety. Try it. The accom- 

 panying is a sketch of my "multum in parvo." The basin of 



water is to correct any dryness of the atmosphere. The chimney 

 may be conveyed anywhere out of draughts. — W. A. Blakston". 



FOUL BROOD. 



I HAVE been anxiously waiting for some of your correspon- 

 dents taking the hint of " B. & W." relative to foul brood, but 

 as no one appears to think the subject of sufficient interest, I 

 conclude that the disease is not very prevalent with your 

 scientific readers. I am sure if the reverse were the ease we 

 should have no lack of very interesting information. I have 

 kept bees about ten years, have taken very great interest in 

 them, and, notwithstanding many losses from various causes, 

 I have never been disheartened until now, when the disease has 

 attacked my stock, destroyed three good hives, and how many 

 more it may take it is of course impossible for me to say. 



I sent you a small piece of comb in August, asking at the 

 same time your opinion and advice ; a month later I examined 

 my hives and found three of them snfiering. I immediately took 

 all the combs away, and joined the three lots of bees together, 

 capturing the three queens, destroying two, and placing the 

 third, an Italian, at the head. The three lots combined I put 

 into a small cigar box, fitted with two pieces of perfectly new 

 comb from an old-fashioned straw hive which had contained a 

 swarm forty- eight hours, and they no more than half filled the 

 box. I then took the queen from another black stock which 

 was perfectly healthy, and placed the box over the hole in the 

 top ; the bees of the healthy hive ascended into the cigar box, 

 and I then shook them out amongst the healthy combs. All 

 this was done without losing a handful of bees. When I 

 examined the two pieces of comb above mentioned, I found one 

 full of honey, the other full of foul brood, the bees having 

 carried the disease with them ; some of the brood had escaped 

 the infection, and had matured (the young bees being dronea 

 from worker cells), and this feature of the disease is, I think, 

 very peculiar. 



Of course I cannot expect the hive which now contains the 

 bees to escape, but I intend making an inspection early in the 

 spring, and if I find the disease, I shall have to take the combs 

 away, and let the bees start life afresh. 



When the disease first makes its appearance, it does not 

 destroy the whole of the brood at once, but in each batch there 

 are some cells that remain sealed, after the majority have 

 hatched, and these sealed cells go on increasing, until by degrees 

 the whole are closed. The bees will not leave them, as a bird 

 will her young when they are dead, but will cling to the 

 diseased brood although there is other comb in the hive free 

 from taint. There is no unpleasant smell, that I can detect, 

 until long after the disease has spread through the combs ; and 

 so very unlike itself is the first appearance of the disease, that 

 I recollect taking the trouble to pick the dead brood out of the 

 cells with a pin, thinking they were merely chilled. 



With regard to the cure of the disease, I do not think that 

 anything would be gained by retaining the combs which con- 

 tain the dead brood, even supposing the infection could be 

 destroyed, because it would cost the bees more in time and 

 labour to clean them than it would for them, with liberal feed- 

 ing, to make new ones ; but I think something might be done 

 to disinfect the combs which are empty, and with that view I 

 have kept fifteen, and shall be very glad if some one will make 

 a suggestion for the purpose. — T., Highgate, Middlesex, 



Herewith I send a piece of comb taken out of a strong stoob. 

 The stock is in a twenty-frame Woodbury hive, and was very 

 full of bees all the season. I could only rob them of about 6 or 

 8 lbs. of honey owing to the poor season we have had in this 

 county (Cheshire). The piece of comb I suspect to be foul- 

 broody. I have had bees now for four seasons, and if this is 

 foul brood I never have seen foul brood before. I first per- 

 ceived it last spring in an Italian hive. The queen was an 

 imported one twelve months ago ; the box she came in emitted 

 a strong and disagreeable smell not to be tolerated in the house, 

 and I put it and the comb into the fire. I washed the box in 

 several waters. All my stocks except one with combs are 

 similar to the piece sent. Two stocks have dwindled entirely 

 away. They do not smell so badly, but have not the fine aroma 

 of a healthy stock. — John Eobinson. 



[The comb sent for inspection exhibits undoubted signs of 

 being badly affected with virulent foul brood. No doubt the 

 infection was introduced into your apiary from the foul-broody 

 condition of the comb which accompanied your Italian queen. 

 Although you very jadiciously burnt the comb as soon as you 



