November 14, 1872. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



395 



and which is the second great injurious cause having its he- 

 ginning in our shows. The mode pursued is to breed the com- 

 mon Air Tumbler true enough, but to use the same means as 

 the Short-faced breeder employs to get them small and fine — 

 viz., constant confinement coupled with very close breeding. I 

 need scarcely say that this treatment has most probably de- 

 stroyed the tumbling property in the Short-faced breed, and 

 may be expected to be equally successful with the common 

 Tumbler. The House Tumbler will, no doubt, throw birds which 

 will tumble inside, although never allowed their liberty, but 

 even in their case I have in a former letter shown that the 

 greatest amount of success is to be found in flying them ; how 

 much more must it be necessary in the case of only moderately- 

 performing Air-Tumblers T I should be inclined to think if such 

 birds had no House-Tumbler blood in them, a very few gene- 

 rations of thern treated in this way would extinguish the faculty 

 altogether. 



The third cause, impairing the qualitj' of the performing bird 

 and emanating from the shows, is that by far too many prizes 

 are given to Balds, Beards, and Mottles. I confess that while 

 I admire the beauty of these birds I am no lover of them, for 

 this reason — that from what I have seen they seem to me to offer 

 only one alternative to the exhibitor of them, and it is this — 

 that he must either be to some small extent a rogue or a fool. 

 If exhibitors were all honest it need not be so ; but as matters 

 stand he must either demean himself to trim his birds by ex- 

 tracting the feathers necessary to improve the cut in the Bald 

 or Beard, aud to get the exact marking wanted in Mottles, which 

 can be done without the possibility of detection, or throw away 

 his entry money, and see others less scrupulous than himself, 

 perhaps with inferior birds, secure the honours. It is not, how- 

 ever, on this ground that I think the giving of so many prizes 

 to the kinds referred to injures the Tumbler as a performing 

 bird, but because they are so uniform in marking that it is im- 

 possible to note the best performers while flying, and match 

 them for tumbling accordingly. Although I am not an exhibitor 

 I am a visitor at a good many exhibitions, and when I meet a 

 prizetaker in common Tumblers, among the first questions I 

 generally ask is, Do your birds tumble ? In nine cases out of ten 

 the answer I get is to the following effect : — " I have a great 

 many birds of the same colour, some tumble and some not, but 

 I don't know which, and cannot say whether these do or not." 

 These markings are also so difficult to breed anything like 

 correctly, that everything requires to be sacrificed in matching 

 for marking alone, even when it is possible to ascertain the 

 tumbling qualities of the individual birds. No better evidence 

 of the difficulty of breeding them for any other property com- 

 bined with marking can be adduced than the relative qualities 

 of these birds in the Short-faced classes with Almonds as Short- 

 faces at the presen 1 , time. Why are the Almonds so much ahead 

 of them in head and beak, but because it is so much easier to 

 make use of any colour or marking springing from Almonds, 

 than to match a badly-marked Bald or Beard ? 



I have endeavoured to show that by the present system of 

 awarding prizes in common Tumbler classes the awards do not 

 generally go to the best performers, but often to birds which are 

 not performers at all; and as the progeny of prize birds are 

 always sought after, this has produced, and is still producing, an 

 extensive dissemination of a very inferior class of performers. 

 I think this evil might be very considerably counteracted by 

 giving some encouragement to the House Tumbler, which is 

 suited for an exhibition bird, because it is in many cases as neat 

 and well-made as the Balds and Beards which carry off the bulk 

 of the prizes, and is to be found of excellent colour in all the 

 following kinds — viz., Almonds, Kites, Agates, Sea., Blacks, 

 Reds, Yellows, Blues, and Duns, and probably others which I 

 may not have seen. In addition, the tumbling property has 

 been so developed that it can be tested by the judges themselves, 

 and I do not see why this should not be considered an additional 

 point. 



I have had my attention called to the prize schedule of the 

 Kilmarnock Show, where I find a special prize is offered for the 

 best performing bird in the common Tumbler class ; this is a 

 step in the right direction, but not exactly what I think they are 

 entitled to, but my views on this must be left to a future com- 

 munication. In the meantime I notice with pleasure that we 

 are again to have a show in Glasgow. Surely the Committee 

 will see that something is done for this class there, more 

 especially as I believe that Glasgow claims the credit of being 

 the cradle of the House Tumbler. — Scotch Thistle. 



BOTTLE-FEEDING. 



I am still often appealed to, notwithstanding what I and others 

 have written on the subject, to account for failure in the appli- 

 cation of the bottle system of feeding bees. In the majority of 

 such cases I am able to judge only from written or verbal de- 

 scriptions of the manner in which the unsuccessful ones have 

 gone to work, by which descriptions it would generally appear 

 as if the plan had been carried out properly. But I am con- 



vinced that there must have been some screw loose somewhere, 

 as I am quite sure, if the directions so frequently given in your 

 columns are scrupulously followed, that failure cannot possibly 

 result. I have during the past week or two given considerable 

 quantities of food to five hives. Contrary to my usual custom, 

 owing to the dull wet weather we have had, and wishing to 

 have the feeding accomplished as quickly as possible, I have 

 fed both day and night. In every case the bottles have been 

 emptied in the course of a few hours with little excitement, 

 and also, I am quite sure, without a single drop having fallen or 

 dripped within the hives after the bottles have been placed in 

 position. My bottles for autumnal feeding hold about 2 lbs. 

 each. I have tried all sorts of feeders — fountain, float, and 

 trough, but have never met with anything to equal the bottle 

 for cleanliness, rapidit3 r , or safety ; in freedom from excitement, 

 or the attraction of robbers. 



Bee-keepers who have not yet examined their stocks should 

 do so without delay, and supply any deficiency during the 

 present month before colder weather sets in. Let all the food 

 that may be required to render the hives safe for the winter be 

 supplied in as short a time as possible, that all unnecessarily 

 prolonged excitement may be avoided. As soon as it has been 

 concluded let all the appliances be removed, and the hives made 

 secure for the winter. — S. Bevan Fox. 



THE BEE SEASON OP 1872 IN SCOTLAND. 



The bee season in Scotland has been, on the whole, one of the 

 worst experienced for many years back. In the first place, the 

 mortality of hives in early spring was unprecedently great. An 

 adverse winter was succeeded by a kind of weather most pre- 

 judicial to breeding. Autumn stores, not over-abundant, di- 

 minished with more than ordinary rapidity, so that what with 

 impoverished supplies, mortality of bees, and deaths of queens, 

 whole apiaries in various parts of Scotland were sadly broken 

 up. Such, at least, has beffn the result of my own experience 

 and observation in not a few localities. Spring, again, was 

 followed by an indifferent summer, and a still worse autumn. 

 Throughout the season the weather maintained the same un- 

 deviating character — rain ! rain ! rain ! almost incessantly. 

 Flower- honey was in consequence very limited in most localities, 

 and heather-honey even more so. But it could not be other- 

 wise. How could the bee-keeper expect a good return from the 

 heather, rich though it was, when the corn, and the wheat, and 

 the potatoes were rotting in the fields from constant deluges of 

 rain ? Notwithstanding that the heath was of extraordinary 

 richness and exuberance of flower, the quantity stored, more 

 particularly in the later, districts, was comparatively small, and 

 very few hives indeed were much benefited from this the richest 

 of all nectar-producing flowers. 



Notwithstanding the character of the season, swarms though 

 later were numerous enough, and most bee-keepers find at the 

 close that their apiaries are more marked for deficiency in the 

 weight than in the numbers of the hives. I see some good 

 accounts of several bee-keepers in England, and I have often 

 envied the splendidly-filled supers of 50 lbs. and upwards we 

 sometimes read of being obtained in the apiaries of Mr. S. B. 

 Fox, of Exeter, and others. No doubt our southern friends owe 

 it mainly to their milder climate. We have in Scotland no lack 

 of honey-producing flowers, but then our climate is colder, more 

 ungenial, and not so propitious for bees as in the southern parts 

 of England. 



I would here remark that it is a very customary thing for 

 novices in bee-keeping to pride themselves on the amount of 

 honey obtained by virtue of some particular hive constructed 

 upon this or that principle — the " old-fashioned " being always 

 designated the failing system, and the " modern " or "scientific " 

 the successful one. An experienced bee-keeper will never take 

 credit for such adventitious results. Only grant the two neces- 

 sary conditions — good weather and good pasturage, and strong 

 hives whether domiciled in a palatial hive of the most costly 

 material and elaborate construction, or in the simple common 

 straw, if both of proper dimensions will show results, cateris 

 paribus, equally good. 



Bees, no doubt, require to be managed intelligently, and re- 

 gard had to their known instincts and habits ; but it is an old 

 error to suppose that we can compel our little favourites to aug- 

 ment their sweets according to mere wti n or caprice. All the 

 bee-science of the age is inadequate for such a purpose, nor can 

 it ever induce the strongest hive in such an autumn as the past 

 to collect, even from the exuberant flowers of the well-loved 

 heather, any large supplies ; and rich and beautiful though that 

 favourite flower was this season, it may be said, so far as the 

 bees were concerned, to have " wasted its sweetness in the 

 desert air." 



Most bee-keepers who keep large apiaries have had this 

 autumn to feed largely such hives as were deficient in weight. 

 But what is the quantity of honey requisite for winter stores ? 

 I always wish as a minimum 15 lbs. It is true that the ordinary 

 consumption for a hive from October to March may not exceed 



