December 8, 1870. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENEK. 



463 



as in the Satinette, the remainder of the body white ; a good frillj , 

 and grouse-muffed. If this bird could be bred as short in bill and a3 

 round in head as the Satinette, nothing could surpass it. Swifts were 

 highly commended. Mr. "Watts and Mr. Banks also showed birds that 

 were worthy of a prize, aud were imported with the aforenamed 

 varieties ; they were good in feather and pencilling, and will be heard 

 of at a future day. This was a remarkably good and strong class, 

 numbering twenty-three pens. 



BRECON SHOW. 



"Will yon allow me to ask through your columns if any of 

 the prizes awarded at the Brecon Show, on September 21st and 

 22 od, have been paid? I have not received the sum to which I 

 am entitled, and on writing to the Secretary got no reply. — 

 A Constant Readee. 



[Give the Secretary .notice that if payment be not made by a 

 day you name, you will sue him in the County Court. — Eds.] 



BALDHEADS AND BEARDS. 

 I think it is high time my cooing should be heard, for I 

 consider I am a neglected bird, and have quite as muuh right 

 to be seen and admired at shows as other Short-faced Tumblers. 

 Nine out of ten prize lists do not contain a class for me. I think 

 tie number of entries at the Palace Show affords a clear proof 

 that a separate class for Baldheads and Boards will pay. — An 

 Old Beaed. 



FOUB BROOD. 

 Aeoct this time last year I sent you an account of the 

 successful introduction of sis Ligurian queens into as many 

 stocks of black bees (in Ireland), and looked forward to being 

 tibia to report a favourable return for the trouble this season. 

 So far from this, however, if I would " a tale unfold," it must 

 be one of unmitigated disaster; and as the misfortunes of our 

 neighbours will generally convey a lesson, if rightly viewed, I 

 am induced to send you the following account of my apiarian 

 troubles. 



It may be, and I thick probably is, the case, that some of 

 your bee-keeping readers are in the same unconscious state of 

 blissful ignorance in which I have been in ; and whilst reading 

 plenty about the horribly infectious foul brood, and even seeing 

 their stocks dying unaccountably before their eyes, never for an 

 instant suspect that they have the contagion in full force 

 in their own apiary. As my experience may put such as theBe 

 on their guard, and lead them to a oareful examination of their 

 stocks, or may somewhat interest your more fortunate bee- 

 keeping readers, you may, perhaps, think it worth a place in 

 your columns. 



At the fall of the season of 18G9 my apiary boasted of ten 

 stocks — viz., the six black ones with Italian queens (mentioned 

 above), two pure Ligurian stocks, and two hives of black bees, 

 with queens of the same colour. All were strong with good 

 stores of honey, and although, when examining the six stocks 

 to find the black queens, I saw through all patches of dead 

 brood, these did not attract any special attention, I made all 

 up snug for the winter, well satisfied at the state of my colonies, 

 and with bright anticipations of a fine return from the next 

 honey season. 



March of the present year was fine and mild, and the bees 

 began to show outside early ; the black stocks in the smallest 

 numbers, the pure Italians much stronger, and the ligurianised 

 ones sending out a goodly number, among which a large pro- 

 portion were well-marked Italians. By the middle of April a 

 complete examination was thought advisable, resulting, much 

 to my disgust, in the discovery that the two black stocks were 

 dead, not a bee being found alive in them, but there were 

 large stores of honey ; most of the other hives were very weak, 

 while a few were tolerably strong, but none in the condition 

 that their strength in the fall and the so far favourable season 

 would have led one to anticipate. At last the dark suspicion 

 forced itself on my mind, that for two seasons I had been 

 nursing the dreaded foul brood, and by every possible means 

 spreading it through my apiary. A piece of brood comb sent 

 to Mr. Woodbury elicited an opinion that but too surely con- 

 firmed my worst fears, which all the valuable information in 

 your Journal had before failed to arouse. Many things before 

 so mysterious were made at once clear, and the cause of the 

 devastating influences which had in 18C8 reduced the number of 

 stocks from eighteen to ten, and again in 1869 still further 

 reduced the roll, was apparent. 



However, I resolved on trying Dr. Preuss's system of cure, 



and having laid in a stock of new hives, frames, and bottom- 

 boards, with a supply of carbolic acid and lime, I set to 

 work to try to get rid of the plague off-hand. Every colony 

 was diseased, so going through them all I changed the hives 

 (-soaking them, as taken away, wilh oarbolic acid), cutting out 

 all the diseased brood I could find, washing each frame with 

 carbolio acid, and laying down lime in front of the Btands. In 

 ten days I had to ropeat these operations, the stocks being as 

 bad as if I had done nothing, and at this time I also found t«o 

 of the hives queenless, and so weak that I had to join them to 

 two others in order to save the remaining bees. Ten days 

 later being in no better condition, and finding the season 

 slipping over without any result being obtained, I decided to 

 resort to the more vigorous measures recommended by Mr. 

 Woodbury ; and fresh hives, &c, being again procured, I 

 brushed all the bees into them, and left them to begin the 

 world again.* 



Au inspection in another fortnight showed me that once 

 more the plague was doing its work, and two more of the stocks 

 were queenless. This left me but four stocks, as the last two 

 I also added to others. 



Finding now the powerful enemy I had to contend against, 

 I gave up almost all hope of saving any of my stocks, and 

 turned my thoughls to the preservation of the L^guian queen?. 

 Two black slocks were therefore purchased in old-fashioned 

 straw hives, and placed in position about two miles from my 

 original apiary, and haviug driven them I fixed the combs in 

 frame hives, and transferred the bees into them. A few days 

 hfterwards I took the black queens out of these hives, and in- 

 troduced the Ligurian queens from two of my original, and 

 now diseased stocks, leaving them to raise new queeDS, which 

 they soon did. By constant examination, and cutting out every 

 foul cell as it appeared, I was able to strengthen the four in- 

 fected colonies, but not to get tid of the disease. At the end 

 of September I obtaioed two more stocks in straw hives, and 

 doing the same as before with the combs and bees, I exchanged 

 their queens for the two raised in the Ligurian hives. 



I was now in possession of four Ligurian stocks in good 

 health, and four diseased ones ; of these I have since moved 

 two to another part of the country, and having purchased a 

 quantity of honey in the comb, have fitted up new frame 

 hives with it, and transferred the bees into the hives so fur- 

 nished. The ono longest done is now working well as far as 

 the weather permits, and when last examined seemed free from 

 disease. 



The other is only recently done, so I cannot say how it will turn 



out, but if it suoceed we purpose doing the same with the re- 



' mainiug two infected hives, and so leaving the original apiarian 



j site without a stock, so to continue for some time. This is, I 



believe, the next best thing to burning the diseased stocks and 



all belonging to them in the first instance, which is, after al', 



I am convinced, the cheapest thing to do wherever this disease 



' gains any way in an apiary. Had we done so when we became 



aware of its existence in our stocks, we should have been saved 



I an immensity of care and anxiety, and would be now fully as 



| well off as we are. 



I think you will admit that few apiarians would take any- 

 thing like the same trouble that I have done (nor indeed would 

 I advise them to do so, when the disease has obtained full 

 possession of most of the stocks, as in my case), yet you see 

 that all the results I have to show are two stocks saved (if 

 saved at all) at the very end of the«season, and at theexpenso 

 of an entire new outfit and freEn combs of honey. — Hideenian 

 Bee. 



* You appear to have omitted tlie three or four days " penal discipline 

 and inanition," in an intermediate hive which is a most essential feature 

 in the only mode of treatment which I found at all emoacious in curing 

 foul hrood.— A Devonshire Bee-keepeb. 



OUR LETTER BOX. 



Fowls Dying — Feeding (E, P.). — The purple comb, loss of appetite, 

 inoping, and then dying, iudicate poison, and where thirty die off we 

 should be disposed to attribute the destruction to that cause. Your feed- 

 ing is very bad ; it is good enough to keep your fowls alive, but not in 

 good condition. The only good food you give is the crushed bnrley, and 

 you qualify that with bran. Give at daybreak a fetd of bnrleymeal or of 

 ground oats slaked. Give table and house scraps and whole corn at mid- 

 day, meal again in the evening. Eschew Potatoes, Indian corn, and brnn. 

 If you have another fowl attacked give immediately Ihrec pills of cam- 

 phor each the size of a pea, and about a tuble-spoonful of brandy aud 

 water, balf and half. We have known this very successful in restoring 

 circulation, and shall be glad to hear the result in your case. 



Hens Going to the Nest, but no Eggs (Egglesa).—1heT9 is mis- 



