September 13, 1864. ] 



JOURNAL OP HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



225 



of the box. This latter must be of sufficient depth to leave 

 a space of an inch or more between the hive and the box- 

 cover which, having had some good size holes made in it for 

 ventilation, should be marked "This side up" and nailed 

 down over all.] 



UNITING QUEENS TO STOCKS. 

 The following observations may, perhaps, interest some 

 of your apiarian readers. Having successfully introduced a 

 good many queens to sundry stocks without a single failure 

 by following out the method indicated by "B. & W.," and 

 three queens forwarded to apiarian correspondents having 

 also been successfully united to stocks of black bees by pur- 

 suing the same course, I was almost inclined to look upon 

 it as infallible. Subsequent experience has, however, led 

 me to modify my opinion, and has compelled me to believe 

 that the introduction of a strange queen is always attended 

 with more or less risk. 



In July last I presented a neighbouring bee-keeper with a 

 Ligurian queen, and at the same time detailed to him the 

 course to be pursued in introducing her to his stock of 

 black bees. He gave an account of his proceedings as 

 follows : — 



" On Friday evening I received your present, and, after 

 carefully perusing your instructions, set to work, delighted 

 with my task. I soon caught my English queen, and placed 

 her in reserve, allowing the hive to remain queenless till the 

 morning ; but five hours after capturing the queen I placed 

 the Italian queen with her subjects over the hole in the top 

 of the hive, covered with the perforated slide. On the fol- 

 lowing morning, having removed all the Italian workers, I 

 cautiously withdrew the zinc slide, and allowed one bee to 

 ascend; it at once attacked her majesty fiercely, and I 

 removed it. 



" Shortly afterwards I admitted another, which seemed 

 better disposed; but in admitting a second, they both set 

 upon her most savagely. 



" I found it was of no use at present, so I allowed the 

 queen to remain over the slide till my return in the evening, 

 thinking they would be glad to accept her then. I proceeded 

 as before. The first bee seemed kindly disposed, and my 

 hopes at once revived ; but in admitting another, imagine 

 my grief and disappointment, when it instantly attacked 

 her, and before I could kill it inserted its sting in her side, 

 where it remained when I separated them. She lingered 

 until morning. I then presented their old queen to them ; 

 she was at once recognised and joyfully welcomed. — G. L. 



"I subsequently introduced another Italian queen to this 

 same hive, who was properly received and accepted." 



A similar misfortune, however, occurred in my own apiary. 

 "A Devonshire Bee-keeper" kindly presented me with a 

 pure Italian queen. I caught the monarch of one of my own 

 stocks, and after the bees had been queenless for twenty- 

 four hours, inverted the box containing the strange queen 

 over the aperture in the top of the hive, which was covered 

 with a piece of perforated zinc; this seemed to rather quiet 

 the stock, who (not having any brood) were in a great state 

 of agitation ; and after they had remained in this state for 

 about five hours I removed all the strange workers, and, 

 placing the queen alone under a tumbler, carefully admitted 

 one bee; it behaved well, a second also conducted itself 

 with becoming decorum, but a third at once got upon the 

 back of the queen, and almost instantly inflicted a mortal 

 wound. A spare queen from one of my nucleus-boxes was 

 accepted with but -little trouble the following day. — J. E. B. 



FOUL BEOOD. 



"When the "Devonshire Bee-keeper-" published the 

 doleful account of his disastrous experience of foul brood 

 last year, I confess I thought he had drawn largely upon 

 his imagination, and magnified a very trifling evil into one 

 of vast dimensions in order to enliven the Journal with a 

 little variety and astonish the apiarian world. 



With Mr. Lowe I could not divine how a malady so ma- 

 lignant and infectious as had been described, could fre- 

 quently, or only occasionally, play such havoc in our hives 



without attracting the serious attention of our keenest 

 English observers. 



If Mr. Woodbury had been given to romancing, or if he 

 had stood alone and no witness had appeared to confirm his 

 testimony, it is probable that the evil which he had described 

 would have been regarded by many people as entirely of his 

 own creating. It was an evil which I had not previously 

 seen or noticed, and I quite sympathised with the view of 

 Mr. Lowe, when he ascribed its origin to " chill." 



In this opinion I was somewhat confirmed on the 26th of 

 October last, by finding on that day a hive, which I had 

 previously set aside as my best stock for winter, in anything 

 but a prosperous condition. It was a common cottage straw 

 hive, had swarmed twice in the July previous, and contained 

 at least two stones of honey. On turning it bottom upwards 

 I found the bees reduced to a mere handful, and the whole 

 brood-comb to the extent of 230 superficial square inches, 

 sealed over. It having a very suspicious appearance I im- 

 mediately cut out the comb, and on probing the cells 

 found in every one which I pierced either dark dried matter, 

 a putrid viscous liquid, or defunct rotting nymphs. The 

 smell from the comb was peculiar. Here, then, I at once 

 concluded, is the much-talked-of foul brood which occupies 

 such a prominent position in the Journal. 



Lest there should be some mistake regarding it, I de- 

 termined to send a specimen to Mr. Woodbury for his 

 opinion. Accordingly I despatched, per post, a few inches 

 of the affected comb in a box, and in reply to my inquiries 

 received for answer in one letter, " I have not the least 

 doubt of its containing foul brood ; " and in another " I am 

 bound to say differed not in the least (so far as I could 

 discover), from that in my own apiary." This identification, 

 of an affection which I had found in a bell-shaped cottage- 

 hive with the true foul-brood disease was just what I desi- 

 derated, for it occurred to me that I could prove to Mr. 

 Woodbury's entire satisfaction that the evil now manifested 

 was simply the result of " chill." The hive in question had 

 not been moved from its stand for twelve months, and in 

 the casts which it sent off on the 3rd and 15th of July, there 

 was no disease whatever, as was proved by careful inspec- 

 tion ; but when it threw its second swarm on the loth, the 

 population would be greatly reduced, whilst much of the 

 brood would be still unhatched. At that time the days 

 were warm, but the nights were cold, and on the night of 

 the 18th, as is recorded in the Journal, there was 5° of frost — 

 a temperature which we believe was never before registered 

 in July. Here, then, I said to Mr. Woodbury, is a cause 

 sufficient to account for all the evil which I have found, and 

 scarcely a doubt on the subject remained when I reflected 

 that infection had not been conveyed from the diseased 

 parent to its offspring, which appeared to be in as healthy a 

 condition as possible. Of this I made myself quite certain, 

 as will appear from what I have to say regarding the first 

 cast of the 3rd, which had been lodged in an eight-frame 

 Huber hive. From this eldest offshoot of the diseased hive, 

 which for brevity I shall designate Huber, four whole combs 

 were cut out and the upper halves of two others. The bees 

 were then driven out and a careful examination made of the 

 two half and two whole combs left, but in no part of the 

 hive was a single foul cell found, so I returned the bees to 

 their almost emptied dwelling. Why should this hive be in 

 such a healthy flourishing condition, when its parent was 

 dwindling away under the fell power of a malignant and 

 most infectious disease ? This was a question, on the sup- 

 position that Mr. Woodbury had correctly described the evil, 

 which I could not answer ; and when Mr. Lowe put forth his 

 able statement at the beginning of the year, I could not 

 help thinking truth might yet be on his side, notwithstand- 

 ing the vast mass of evidence which had been brought for- 

 ward in support of Mr. Woodbury's views. But I was open 

 to conviction, and I resolved to test the infectious character 

 of the complaint which had been pronounced identical with 

 Mr. Woodbury's foul brood. 



For this purpose I selected for experiment a healthy 

 cottage straw hive, and the Huber-hive just mentioned, con- 

 taining only two half and two whole combs. These I fed 

 most liberally with honey taken from the diseased hive, and 

 by the 14th of April of this year the comparatively empty 

 Huber contained brood in all stages, which so far as I could 

 judge were quite healthy. On that day, also, it commenced 



