Septemoer,6, 1S04. 



JOTTBNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



205 



covered jars, where it will keep without candying. To prevent 

 danger of burning, set the vessel in which it is to be heated 

 into another contain. nig water. 



BEE-MANAGEMENT AND FOOD. 



Toil or some of your numerous subscribers could, I feel 

 sure, tell me the plainest, simplest, and cheapest method of 

 managing a few stocks of bees. I have too great a dread 

 of their stings to become a skilful apiarian : therefore the 

 expensive and complicated hives I see generally used would 

 not suit me. The working men I have in my garden know 

 nothing of the proper way of handling bees beyond shaking 

 down a swarm from a bough, and putting the hive on its 

 stand afterwards ; and it would take no small share of per- 

 suasion to induce me to enter the domains of my bees until 

 at least twelve hours after that exasperating operation has 

 been successfully concluded. In fact, I only endure bees for 

 the sake of honey, which is almost a necessity in a remote 

 country house like mine. I find the common straw hive 

 does not suit my bee-house, besides having to sacrifice the 

 insects when I want their stores. 



I wish, also, to gain some information on the best flowers 

 to plant for bee food. I have tried many, but found the 

 bees seemed to like nothing so much as mignonette — not 

 even white clover. Borage they do not much frequent, and 

 few florists' flowers seem to please their taste. The helio- 

 trope and Oxalis floribunda are exceptions. There is a little 

 blue plant, of which I have a small bed, which they frequent. 

 I send a bit of it, and will be obliged to you for its name. 

 Some persons recommend me to sow patches of buckwheat 

 near the house : is it a bee plant ? 



I once knew an old gardener who kept a large supply of 

 bees, and was most successful in obtaining quantities of 

 honey from them. He made three or four hogsheads of 

 delicious metheglin (or mead) every year, besides all the 

 combs he kept for the use of his employer's family. He fed 

 his bees in winter on small birds, roasted well, and basted 

 with honey or strong syrup of sugar and treacle. I have 

 seen him take out the bare skeletons from his hives, there- 

 fore the bees must have eaten the meat off the bones. He 

 used to say nothing agreed so well with bees as roasted 

 birds. I shall wait with anxiety a reply through the 

 columns of your Journal. — Ruby. 



[With your dread of bees and the ignorance of your as- 

 sistants, we cannot advise any attempt to advance upon the 

 old and well-understood system of management. Destroy 

 swarms as a rule, and you will insure young queens and 

 obtain fine honey, but renew your old stocks by the substi- 

 tution of swarms every five or seven years. If your bee- 

 house is not suited to common straw hives, have it altered; 

 for none other are so cheap or so well adapted to your pur- 

 pose. The specimen you enclose is Salvia argentea, Silvery- 

 leaved Sage. Buckwheat forms excellent bee-pasturage, 

 but should be sown in large quantities to be of much service. 

 Situated as you are, however, there is little doubt of your bees 

 doing well, and we should deem it labour lost to cultivate 

 expressly for them. "We have been told that in China they 

 bury bees during winter, and also bury a dead fowl with 

 each hive. When exhumed in the spring, the bones of the 

 fowl are stated to be picked as clean as those of the small 

 birds you mention !] 



UNITING BEES-TAKING THE HONEY FEOM 

 PARTIALLY-FILLED COMBS. 



I have two " casts " so light that I doubt whether any 

 amount of autumn feeding would carry them through the 

 winter. If I unite them to other stocks, what shall I do 

 with the brood-comb, if any, and what with any honey there 

 may be in the other comb ? The two stocks or May swarms 

 of this year to which I propose to unite them, are in Stew- 

 arton-hives ; what would be the best plan to adopt in carry- 

 ing out my proposal ? These swarms have filled only one 

 box completely, and a second box but partially, what had I 

 better do with these second boxes ? Shall I leave them as 

 they are, or remove them ? and if the latter, what shall I do 

 with any honey there may be in them ? If the former, 



would not the honey in them help to support the bees from 

 the casts that I propose to put to them ? 



In the next place, I have some partially-filled combs in a 

 glass super on a Woodbury bar-and-frame hive, how can I 

 extract the honey out of them without breaking them up ? 

 Any information respecting the above would greatly oblige. 

 Please to understand that I am quite a novice at bee-keep- 

 ing, and regard my questions as the natural growth of 

 necessary ignorance. — T. R. D. 



[You are not likely to find any brood in either of your 

 weak casts at this season. Whatever honey remains will 

 be fit for table purposes, to which we should apply it. By 

 cutting off the empty part of the combs in a straight line 

 they may readily be attached to either bars or frames, and 

 should be carefully preserved for use next season. Read 

 Mr. Woodbury's articles on driving and uniting bees, in 

 Nos. 139 and 144 of The Journal of Horticulture, and 

 follow the instructions therein given. 



We conclude that it is the lower compartment which is 

 but partially filled in your Stewarton hives, and if so should 

 leave them as they are. 



The only method of appropriating the honey in partially- 

 filled combs without breaking them up altogether, is to 

 slice off the cells on both sides, leaving the central foun- 

 dations uninjured, and fixed to the bars for future use. Our 

 esteemed correspondent, " B. & W.," once informed us that 

 by adopting this plan he had had the same combs filled 

 thrice in one season.] 



THE BEE SEASON. 

 The summer of 1864 has been a very fine one for bees, 

 but, in my opinion, inferior to the last, as the flowers were 

 languishing in July for want of moisture. I have noticed, 

 however, a great appearance of honeydew in August : this 

 generally produces honey of rather a coarser character than 

 from white clover or other fine bee pasture. — H. W. Newman, 

 Hillside, Cheltenham. 



APIARIAN VARIETIES. 



Foul Brood. — I was very sorry to hear of the apiary of 

 "A Devonshire Bee-keeper" being so affected, and I have 

 no doubt that it would have been entirely destroyed had it 

 been in the hands of any one but himself; and for my own 

 part I thank him for the straightforward manner which he 

 gave it to the world. I have some experience and informa- 

 tion on the subject, which I hope to communicate at some 

 future opportunity. 



Queens in 1S62. — In the first place, the great Dzierzon 

 and " A Devonshire Bee-ejseper " gave it as their opinion 

 that a young queen would not take her wedding flight with 

 the thermometer lower than 70° or 75 3 .* The low tem- 

 perature at the time they should have been out gave rise to 

 some misgivings and uneasiness on my part, as the sheet 

 was as follows : — 52°, 54°, 56°, for weeks ; but on the 7th of 

 July came a little sun, and the register was 60°. I was at 

 my hives in an instant to see if any of the virgins would make 

 their exit. In a few minutes No. 1 made her appearance 

 and took wing, but returned in about five minutes unsuc- 

 cessful, but stayed upon the edge of the alighting-board a 

 few minutes and then took flight again. As near as I could 

 tell she was about twenty minutes in returning, with evident 

 signs of impregnation,, and laid eggs in six days all right, 

 with the thermometer at 61°. No. 2 was out at the same 

 time ; I did not see her return, but she had been successful, 

 as her young ones were out at the same time as those of the 

 other. She was in a straw hive, which I could not inspect. 

 I should have said that No. 1 was twelve days after swarm- 

 ing, and No. 2 was nine days. 



My next performance was with queens at the time of 

 taking them up. I had some driven bees without a queen 

 three days which became very uneasy, so I gave them one 

 that had ceased breeding some months, and marked her. I 

 gave her to them at the top without any preparation. They 

 received her with the greatest kindness, and all was peace ; 



* I still hold to the same opinion. Was not your thermometer in the 

 .shade, and did it not therefore register a lower temperature than the sanny 

 atmosphere which inclined the queens to hearken to the call of lore ? — A 

 Devonshire Bee-keeper. 



