December 7, 1871. ] 



JOUBi^AIi OF HORnCULTUBE AND COTIAGE GARDE MEB. 



459 



perceived its diseased state, yet the qneen and her bees must 

 have carried the infection with them into the receptacle pre- 

 pared for them. Your other pieces must have had access to 

 the contents of this and of the other diseased stocks that have 

 dwindled away. We have little faith in any remedial measures, 

 particularly at this time of the year, short of absolute destruc- 

 tion of the bees, combs, and hives, or, if not of the hives, at 

 least of all the bars and frames which may have been used by 

 any much-affected colony. The hives, if too valuable to be 

 sacrificed, must be scalded out with boiling water, scraped 

 olean in every part or crevice, and well saturated with a con- 

 centrated solution of chloride of lime. 



If you do not like to proceed to such extreme measures for the 

 purpose of "stamping out" this dreadful malady, you can wait 

 until April, keeping your stocks as strong as possible by judici- 

 ous feeding if necessary until that time ; then drive the bees out 

 into empty hives — straw skeps or plain boxes are best — joining 

 two or three stocks together. Give them some food, and in 

 the course of a few days transfer them into clean frame hives, 

 burning any comb that may have been built in the interior, 

 and taking care to scald out and treat with chloride of lime the 

 hives or boxes used for their temporary homes. Yon will then 

 require to feed liberally until the season is sufficiently advanced 

 for the bees to take ample care of themselves. 



The chief objection to this plan is, that some of these infected 

 hives you have now may perish during the winter or early 

 spring, when they will be visited by hosts of robbers both from 

 your own and neighbours' apiaries, thereby spreading the dis- 

 ease far and wide. Another objection is, that after all your 

 trouble one or more of the expatriated colonies may convey 

 some traces of the malady with them, either by means of honey 

 with which they may have fiUed themselves prior to their 

 exodus, or from actual contact with the disease, so that you 

 may find that you will have taken all your trouble to no pur- 

 pose. It seems a very hard measure to have to go thoroughly 

 to the root of the evil and utterly destroy everything that has 

 come in contact with this disease ; but we are quite sure that 

 it is the soundest and safest policy in the end, unless the bee- 

 master has most abundant time and leisure for constant and 

 unremitting attention and supervision. The late Mr. Wood- 

 bury certainly did succeed in eradicating foul brood from his 

 apiary after it had established a firm footing, but very few 

 apiarians would, like him, have the requisite time and leisure 

 at their disposal, or, if they had, would be disposed to under- 

 take the very considerable trouble that the experiment would 

 involve.] 



BEE-KEEPING IN CHESHIRE. 



I HAVE been somewhat surprised that none of your bee-keep- 

 ing readers have found time to give their experience of the past 

 season, so acting on the friendly " provocative" of "B.& W." I 

 forward an account of my doings for 1871. 



May found me with eleven stocks, one having perished through 

 loss of queen. Of these, three were in Woodbury hives, the 

 rest in straw hives as described by me some time ago. The 

 spring up to this time had been rather backward, cold winds 

 and wet prevailing, but after May 3rd things looked brighter, 

 and I observed honey glistening in the cells. On May 14',h 

 drones were visible, and breeding going on very fast. On the 

 16th I supered several, which took to their boxes at once. 

 Towards the end of the month nearly all my stocks showed 

 symptoms of swarming, though I did all I could to prevent it. 



June was a most annoying month, though honey was plentiful, 

 lor the little rascals had made up their minds, and swarm after 

 swarm issued from supered hives, though they had ample room 

 and had stored a tolerable quantity of honey in the supers, so 

 that by the middle of July I had fourteen swarms, and the 

 honey season almost over. It generally ends with us about 

 the 20th of July. I found that the honey in the supers, 

 which were all removed, did not exceed 30 lbs. ; and as I had 

 no idea of giving a hundredweight or two of syrup to make a 

 lot of weak stocks carry through the winter, I resolved to make 

 my first trip to the heather, which was blooming finely on the 

 ranks of the Dee, six miles away. 



On August 5th I took eleven of the lightest hives, including a 

 double swarm in one of Mr. Pettigrew's 16-inch hives, which 

 issued at the end of June and had done little or nothing up to 

 that time. I got them down very nicely, and for a month they 

 did capitally. I brought them home on September 16th in fine 

 condition (the Pettigrew hive weighed 50 lbs.), the average being 

 38 lbs. I obtained nine stocks of condemned bees for the 



trouble of driving, so that on the whole my trip to the heather 

 was satisfactory. 



Taking the whole year I find the general results to be good, 

 for I have sold a few swarms and given one away. I have had 

 about 125 lbs. of honey, maintained a unicomb hive, and at 

 this date (November 27th) have fourteen very strong stocks, 

 nearly all of which have had one or two stocks of bees added, 

 and plenty of stores to last till spring. 



I do not consider this district by any means first-rate for 

 bees, and with almost the single exception of myself, the bee- 

 keepers of our neighbourhood are content to do things in the old 

 way, taking a hive or two when an unusually good season occurs 

 and losing stock after stock through the want of attention in 

 autumn. I am in hopes, however, of inducing a better state 

 of things in time, as no one that I can hear of has taken any 

 honey about here, and my results will set them thinking a little, 

 I imagine. 



Talking of results compels me to allude to the case of an old 

 cottager on the hill to whom I took my bees. He commenced 

 the year with three stocks, which had increased in September to 

 thirteen, nine of which I drove for him. They all weighed 

 well, so that he did wonderfully; but had he not lived in a good 

 heather district of course all his swarms, as they were mostly 

 late ones, would have come to grief, and so would have done 

 harm instead of good. — William Broughion Caer, Higher 

 Behington. 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Oakham Show.—" I obtained the second prize in the class for Game 

 Bantams, best two hens or pullets.— Joseph Oldfield, Bradford, York- 

 shire." 



Catching Wiid Pigeons Alive {Columha). — We linow of no plan of 

 doing this ; there is, indeed, an old story of a man plagued with Wood 

 Pigeons, who made small sugarloaf cones of stout brown paper, put some 

 bird-lime inside, and some grains of corn at the point of the cone, and the 

 birds trying to get at the corn became hoodwinked, and were so caught. 

 We never tried the plan. 



Dorkings in a General Class (Surrey). — Cuckoo Dorkings may and 

 should be entered in a general Dorking class. They are as pure as any 

 others, and are much prized in some parts of Surrey. You can enter in 

 the Variety class any breed that hasjno class of its own- In a list where 

 there is a class for Bantams of any other variety, Bantams must be 

 entered in it. If there were no such class they would go in the "Any 

 other variety." 



Milk for Fattening Chickens — Purifying Roost House (B. E. S.). 

 — Milk is better than water for fattening fowls. Your fowl house should 

 not smell it your fowls are properly fed. See that the door is k<^pt open 

 all day. and ventilate it by removmg bricks or boards immediately under 

 the roof, that all vitiated air may be carried away, and that the draught 

 may be above the roosting birds. Lime slaked on the floor will sweeten, 

 but it should not be required in a well-kept house. 



Silver-pencilled HAMBtJRGH Cock's Tail {J. W. W,). — The entire 

 tail of the Silver-pencilled Hamburgh cock should be black, save the 

 silvering or edging of the sickle feathers. 



Scotch Grevs, or Old Scotch Breed (X. T.). — The old Scotch 

 Greys are the barndoor fowls of some parts of Scotland. They are some- 

 what akin to the Cuckoo of England, but they are smaller in size and 

 hone, and lack the lifth claw. They are little kept or known in England, 

 but are useful, hardy birds. 



Scarcity of Eggs — Fattening Chickens {R. G.) — Eggs have never 

 been so scarce as they have been this year. Your fowls do not fatten 

 because they have too much liberty. Shut them up in a small coop in a 

 dark warm place, and they will then not only put on flesh, but in a fort- 

 night they will fatten suflBciently for any useful purpose They must not 

 have food by them, but they must be fed three times per day. 



Black Red Game Bantam Plumage {Far West). — Any tinge of brown 

 on the breast, or of whte in the tail of a Game cock, Barttam or other- 

 wise, is fatal to any hope of success if shown in a class for Black-breasted 

 Reds. As the description implies, in such a class the breast must be 

 black, and it is not so if there are brown feathers in it. If there be any 

 difference in the colour of the legs you have no chance ; unless the leg 

 match you have no hope of success. If then, only one of the three hens 

 has legs the same colour as the cock's, you must show her. A slim body 

 is preferable, and a large comb is by no means an advantage. If it is 

 possible to fulfil these conditions, join them with wings well clipped up 

 to the body, and with hard feathers. If the class is for " Black-breasted 

 and other Reds," you may show the cock in it ; if not, you must show in 

 Brown-breasted Reds, The white downy feathers do not much matter at 

 the insertion of the tail ; but if any of the tail feathers have white in 

 them, it is a disqualification. 



Seasoning Fowls' Food (C, M. S.). — We are not friendly to any of 

 these condiments. Good plain feeding has always answered our purpose. 

 As in duty bound, we have tried experiments, and our belief is — that 

 spices are injurious. Pullets well fed with good food will lay at this 

 time of year if they are old enough. Whatever forces laying injures the 

 fowl and lays the foundation of many diseases. It is with fowls as with 

 human beings — the faster you live the sooner you wear out. The most 

 useful food for hard weather is table and kitchen scraps, and in very hard 

 weather, with snow on the ground, a little strong beer mixed with their 

 food is often beneficial. 



Selection of Stock (Idem). — To breed prize birds, select the parents 

 carefully, hatch early (say March), and feed well from their entrance 

 into life. Never let them go back ; a chicken that has been checked is 

 seldom a prizetaker in after-life. 



