November 10, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



383 



ranged. E xhibitora of nearly every variety of poultry and Pigeons 

 will here find a class. It will be noticed that the entries close 

 on Saturday next, November 12th. 



CHAUCER'S CHANTICLEER. 



In the " Canterbury Tales " Chaucer describes a " Cok highte 

 Chaunticlere " as follows : — ■ 



" His combe was redder than tbe fin corrall, 



Embattled, as it were a castel wall, 

 His bill was black, and as the jet it shone; 



Like asure were his legges and his tone ; 

 His nailes whiter than the lily flour, 



And like the burned gold was his colour." 



The only word in the foregoing passage requiring the aid of 

 a glossary is " tone," which means toes. 



We have described, theD, as the cock of the fourteenth cen- 

 tury a single-combed bird (for I judge the phrase " embattled, 

 as it were a castel wall " refers to the serrations of the comb 

 which justify the comparison), probably of a reddish colour, 

 with a black bill, with blue legs and toes, and with white nails. 

 Chaunticlere probably had neither crest, muff, nor beard ; his 

 deaf-ears were not conspicuous, and his wattles were not large, 

 otherwise we may be sure the poet would have mentioned 

 them. "What was his breed ? Must we yield to the dung-hill 

 the honour of a place in " Canterbury Tales " or can we claim 

 it for some of our favourites of to-day ? 



The description suggests the Golden Hamburgh, but the 

 description of the comb will hardly do ; so observant a man, 

 who is so minute and careful, would not have omitted the con- 

 spicuous white deaf-ear. Nor can we claim it for our Golden 

 Polands for similar reasons. 



The only other point of interest connected with chaunticlere 

 worth mentioning is, that "this cok had in his governance 

 seven hennes." — {Poultry Bulletin) 



HOW LONG ARE YOUNG QUEENS IN 

 EMBRYO 1 ? 



I wish it to be understood that in all my experiments I have 

 left nothing to chance. My hives are not dark straw hives, 

 where the natural history of the bee is at the best but a surmise, 

 but are frame hives (condemned in "The Handy Book"), 

 oapable of being transformed into observatory hives in a few 

 minutes, and from these my observations have all been taken. 



Now, the f rst question I have before me is, Do bees carry 

 eggs from one hive, or from one part of a hive to another, and 

 place them in royal cells ? I say unhesitatingly, No ; for I 

 have witnessed hundreds of queens raised and hatched, and 

 have placed these eggs in the most unfavourable positions, so 

 that if bees ever did shift them, they would certainly have 

 done so; and, as a proof of this, I have at present a piece of 

 comb with seven queen cells, which was commenced inside a 

 hive, but which was removed outside, and although eggs were 

 present, the bees failed to carry in a single one, but have con- 

 tinued to stick to the comb with royal cells outside the hive, the 

 eggs in which are at this moment within a few hours of hatching. 



The next question is the one now in course of discussion 

 regarding the time queens are in being hatched. To this I 

 would reply that it depends on circumstances, and the circum- 

 stances are these. Suppose we take a piece of comb with eggs 

 and brood in all stages, and give it to a hive without a queen, 

 in all probability the bees will commence to raise queens from 

 both eggs and grubs, and in thirty hours we may find one or 

 more queens sealed over, and which will be hatched on the 

 ninth day, or exactly eight days from the time of being sealed. 

 Others in a less forward state will be later, and some may ex- 

 tend to the seventeenth day, exactly sixteen days from the 

 depositing of the egg, which is what we want to know — viz., 

 the exact time from the old queen leaving the cell, where she 

 has deposited the egg, until the time the young queen makes 

 her exit from the same cell. In all cases where I have either 

 seen the eggs deposited or knew when they were laid, I have 

 aever known a queen hatched in less time than sixteen days, 

 or on the seventeenth day after the egg being laid ; and instead 

 of their being less than sixteen days, I have known them kept 

 prisoners for twenty, and even twenty-one days after being laid. 

 This imprisonment occurs only in hives intending to swarm 

 therefore ocular demonstration proves that it requires sixteen 

 days to bring a queen to maturity. I can with safety say that 

 I have been present at the bir.h of the majority of my queens 

 hatched during the past six years, and I may add, so near was 



I in my reckoning, allowing sixteen days, that I have often 

 oaught them in the act of leaving their cells, and have seldom 

 had to wait many hours until they did so. 



There is another question — viz., Can queens be raised from 

 drone eggs, or rather eggs that would produce dones? My 

 answer to this is, No ; and any person who says that they 

 can has but a very imperfect idea of the natural history and 

 anatomy of the honey bee. Without entering into details on 

 this subject, I will merely quote one instance as a proof 

 against this theory, and ask why bees fail to produce queens 

 from the eggs of a virgin or drone-breeding queen ? — A Lan- 

 arkshire Bee-keeper. 



A difference of opinion appears to prevail in regard to the 

 length of time required for the evolution of a queen from an 

 egg. Mr. Woodbury has fixed the period at sixteen days, or 

 thereabouts, and to my mind no evidence has yet been adduced 

 to show that he is mistaken. The fact can only be determined 

 by correct observation and experiment. 



With a view to solve the problem, or rather to obtain addi- 

 tional proof on the point, I introduced on the 28th of August 

 last a fertile queen to a populous hive containing plenty of 

 honey, but neither eggs nor brood. On the 29th and 30th 

 eggs were deposited in one of the combs over a space of 4 square 

 inches, and then I removed the queen that others might be 

 raised from the eggs. Rival cells were duly formed, but on the 

 afternoon of September 13th none of them were found opened, 

 although fully fourteen days had elapsed from the hour of the 

 old queen's removal. It was not till the morning of September 

 11th that the eldest young queen obtained her liberty. Moreover, 

 this queen emanated from one of the earlier-laid eggs ; all the 

 more recently-deposited ones having been removed, and perhaps 

 eaten, by what are called nurse bees. On several occasions when 

 making artificial swarms I have observed that all newly-laid 

 eggs were destroyed. I am not prepared to say that this 

 curious circumstance may be witnessed in every instance where 

 bees are made to evolve young queens from a comb containing 

 eggs, but it certainly does very frequently happen. Sometimes 

 when a comb has contained eggs only, all but those destined 

 for queens have been destroyed, not a Bingle bee having been 

 allowed to be hatched from one of the eggs. In cases where 

 there are larv£8 as well as eggs, it will be found that the recently- 

 deposited eggs are also made away with, although all the larva 

 are carefully nursed. 



The facts now stated have not, so far as I am aware, been 

 mentioned by any writer, and I would not at the present mo- 

 ment have alluded to them but for their bearing on points 

 now debated ; for if a comb contained eggs only, and the age of, 

 the eggs in each portion of the comb has not been well ascer- 

 tained and marked, it is quite impossible to fix what length of 

 time has been occupied in the evolution of a queen from any 

 of them. 



The experiment I have detailed shows that it required, under 

 very favourable circumstances, and during remarkably fine 

 weather, more than fourteen days for the production of royalty 

 from an egg, and I suppose most apiarians entertain the belief 

 that an artificially-reared queen is not detained in her cell a 

 single moment beyond her wishes. If it is the case that young 

 queens occasionally make their appearance before the sixteenth 

 day, dating from the moment when the egg was placed in the 

 cell, they will, I imagine, present an immature appearance. I 

 must, therefore, in the meantime hold to the conviction that 

 either observations not made with sufficient accuracy, or that 

 exceptional cases of premature birth, have led to the erroneous 

 belief that fourteen, and not sixteen, days are required in the 

 production of queens. — R. S. 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Partridge Cochin-China and Black Red Game Cooks (Torquay). — 

 Neither red fluff in the first, nor blue legs in the second are disqualifica- 

 tions, nor are they even faults of any importance. We repeat that which 

 we had said many times — there is no colour for the legs of a Game fowl 

 which is a test of purity or otherwise. The only rule with regard to them 

 is, that there must be positive uniformity of colour in the legs of all the 

 birds that go to form a pen. 



Brahma's Eye Swollen (W.S.).— In any other breed than the Brahma 

 or Cochin the inflation of the skin of the face or lower beak would be a 

 very serious symptom. If neglected it would end in roup. It is, how- 

 ever, of little import with Brahmas. The bird has probably caught cold, 

 and will soon be well. T7ash the face morning and evening with cold 

 water and vinegar ; give a little stimulant twice per day, such as bread 

 and strong beer, and until convalescence give two pills daily of camphor, 

 each the size of a garden pea. 



Laying Soft Eggs {Idem}.— This arises from one of two things— either 



