Angnst 11, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OP HOBTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



115 



is, not too long in the bill, are to be preferred. It is well to 

 keep as many of these as the fancier conveniently can, for when 

 not rearing Almonds their young ones will find a ready sale at 

 prices which will render their keeping profitable. And now for 

 the simple plan to which we have alluded. When the first egg 

 is laid remove it to some safe place (a little box of bran, or else- 

 where) substituting an addled one. Beplace the good egg about 

 9 a.m. on the third day. ThiB prevents the birdB commencing 

 to sit on the first egg, which is very often the case, and ensures 

 both birds being hatched together. Keep a diary of the date 

 on which the eggs should hatch ; and on that day be ready, 

 should ocoasion require it, to help any young bird to extricate 

 itself from the shell, as it often happens, either from weakness 

 or excessive shortness in bill, they are nnable to extricate them- 

 selves. Do not be in too great a hurry to break the shell ; and 

 above all, abstain from doing so till all the blood in the shell is 

 absorbed. It is often the case that a young bird is so fine in 

 the bill or so weak that the old birds are unable to give it food, 

 and it dies in consequence. If either of the young birds are 

 not fed towards the evening of the day on which they are 

 hatohed, get a few groats and masticate them into a pulp. The 

 young bird will readily take this from the mouth. In this 

 manner it can be kept alive till something can feed it. Dozens 

 of the best birds have been saved in this way. The great diffi- 

 culty with regard to Almonds iB the early period at which they 

 leave their young (generally on the fifth or sixth day), and the 

 fancier must be ready the moment they are left to remove them 

 under a pair of feeders which have just hatched. They may be 

 then said, unless any unforeseen accident happens, such as all 

 variaties are liable to, to be out of hand, and require very little 

 more attention. If the old birds have sat on them till the sixth 

 day, let them go to nest again. If they leave them earlier, and 

 have not fed off their soft food sufficiently, supply them with a 

 common young one for a day or so. 



Having now considerably exceeded the limit of the space at 

 our disposal, we shall conclude our remarks by hoping they 

 may be found useful to some, and may be the means of still 

 further extending the delightful fancy of which we have been 

 speaking. 



HOW LONG ARE QUEENS AND WORKERS IN 

 THEIR CELLS? 



AND WHEN DO QUEENS COMMENCE EGG-LAYING ? 



I am glad Mr. Woodbury has been induced to Bet about 

 observing and experimenting, with the view of correcting some 

 of the mistakes which I have made in the natural history of 

 bees. Without admitting that I am wrong on the points 

 noticed in his letter (page 55), I am, as he says, " most anxious 

 to rectify mistakes as soon as sufficient evidence has been ad- 

 duced to satisfy me that I am really in error." Every honest 

 and truth-loving man is not only anxious to avoid making mis- 

 takes, but is ever anxious to acknowledge and rectify those he 

 has made. I hold that there is more honour in confessing a 

 fault or admitting a mistake than there is in oonquering a 

 kingdom. 



I have read Mr. Woodbury's letter touching my so-called 

 mistakes twice over without finding "sufficient evidence to 

 satisfy me," and until sufficient evidence be adduced I shall 

 be permitted to adhere to my old opinions ; and after all, the 

 difference is only a question of forty-eight hours. Very recently 

 Mr. Woodbury admitted that, dating from the removal of an old 

 queen, fonrteen days are the average time which elapses before 

 a young one is hatched out, although some are longer. His 

 last experiment, recorded in page 55 of the Journal, indicated 

 that sixteen days elapse before a queen is developed from an 

 egg. This experiment Was fairly made and honestly recorded, 

 and I consider that Mr. Woodbury is incapable of acting unfairly 

 in word or deed, and I know something of his diligence in 

 honestly investigating questions of bee-history. No one would 

 rejoice more than myself to see the bee-loving community of 

 this country acknowledge in some tangible and substantial form 

 the services of Mr. Woodbury, better known as " The Devon- 

 shire Bee-keeper." 



His queen that was born on the 23rd of June was unquestion- 

 ably sixteen days in being hatohed. I have known queens 

 fifteen and sixteen days in their cells, but I have found that four- 

 teen days are the usual time. Large hens' eggs are sometimes 

 twenty-two, twenty-three, or twenty-four days under the hen, 

 but the usual time is twenty-one days ; and so with other 

 animals the period varies. Probably the next experiment made 

 will not tally exactly with that recorded by Mr. Woodbury. 



Now as to the production of workers, "The Devonshire Bee- 

 keeper " says he has " obtained abundant evidence by placing 

 numerous empty combs in ' brood nests ' of various hives, and 

 has invariably found that workers commenced hatching not later 

 than the nineteenth day, and in some cases on the eighteenth." 

 Theword "commenced" leads me to ask our friend if allthebrood 

 of workers was hatched on the nineteenth day in one, and on 

 the eighteenth day in another ? for to say it commenced to 

 hatch leaves us to guess when the hatching was completed. 

 I have the evidence of three score of hives artificially swarmed 

 every year to prove that many young bees are unhatched till the 

 twenty-first day after their queens have been removed from them. 

 I swarm about sixty hives yearly, and many of them have all the 

 honey taken from them as soon as the brood is hatched, end I 

 have never found an instance of all the brood being hatched on 

 the twentieth day after the queen was gone, and sometimes I 

 have known workers twenty-two days in being hatched. Besides, 

 the experiment of removing queens from hives altogether is, 

 I think, a far more satisfactory one than that of placing a bit of 

 empty comb in a brood nest. When a queen is removed from 

 a hive altogether I find that her eggs last laid in the hive do not 

 become perfect bees till the twenty-first day after ; and if all the 

 bees be removed from the hive on the twentieth day, the un- 

 hatched working bees, generally a great number, will struggle out 

 of their cells on the day following. My mode of managing bees 

 for profit leads me to witness this fact almost daily for weeks 

 and months every year. Hence I repeat that twenty-one days 

 are the usual time for workers to be in their cells, " The Devon- 

 shire Bee-keeper's " late experiment notwithstanding. 



The other point of Mr. Woodbury's letter calling for a remark 

 is that touching the fertilisation of queens and egg-laying after- 

 wards. I have said that egg-laying generally commences from 

 six to ten days after impregnation. He mentions an in- 

 stance of a queen commencing to lay in forty-six hours. I do 

 not question it for one moment, but I may be allowed to state 

 that the fertilisation which he observed was perhaps not the 

 firBt, and it is not at all unlikely that his queen would have 

 commenced laying drone eggs at the same time if she had never 

 met the drone. 



It is exceedingly painful to me to have to offer any remarks 

 apparently in opposition to Mr. Woodbury, and I should be glad 

 to see with him eye-to-eye, but there is a great want of complete- 

 ness in the evidences he has adduced. I have known many 

 young queens commence to lay ten days sooner than others, 

 BDd with close observation there will be seen in every apiary a 

 difference of some days aB to the time of the successful flight 

 and egg-laying. Every honest writer of experience fairly and 

 faithfully reoords the evidences and facts that come to him 

 through his own eyes. " The Handy Book of Bees " is welcomed 

 into the homes of rich and poor as an honest production, and 

 the great satisfaction it gives to all classes of readers will be a 

 stimulus to the author to make a second edition, if ever called, 

 for, more complete and satisfactory than the first. Only two or 

 three points in the book have been demurred to by critical 

 reviewers, and our Devonshire friend is satisfied that some 

 other points are wrong, but which cannot readily be put to the 

 test of actual experiment. The author will feel indebted to 

 him if he will kindly catalogue these supposed errors, so that 

 others may examine and test, if possible, the points disputed. — 

 A. Pettigrew. 



[I do not know that I need say much in reply to the above 

 communication, in whioh, without adducing a tittle of evidence 

 in support of his views, Mr. Pettigrew contents himself with 

 reasserting his errors and cavilling at the facts by which they 

 have been refuted. It seems to me, however, that when a man 

 professes to understand these points in the natural history of 

 the honey bee better than either Huber or Dzierzon, Dr. Bevan 

 or Mr. Langstroth, something more than this may fairly be 

 required of him. If Mr. Pettigrew has really found that the 

 usual time which elapses between the laying of an egg and its 

 development into a queen is only fourteen days, he can surely 

 have no difficulty in citing at any rate a single instance, stating 

 as I have done the circumstances under which it occurred, and 

 the precautions taken to guard against mistakes. So also with 

 regard to his assertion that egg-laying is delayed until six to 

 ten days after fertilisation ; it is scarcely too much to ask him 

 for particulars of one such case, together with the circumstances 

 which attended so remarkable a phenomenon. As in order to 

 weaken my evidence it is suggested that the results which I 

 have recorded may be regarded as exceptional, I would state 

 that I have been breeding queens for the last ten years, during 

 which period scores of instances have come under my direct 



