362 



JOURNAL OF HOBTICULTTJEE AND COTTAGE GAKDErJER. [ November l, 18K. 



bees do not fill both sides of all the combs equally with 

 honey, but sometimes put three or four times more weight 

 of honey at one side of the comb than at the other, and the 

 weight on the heavy side not being in the centre throws 

 the bottom of the frame against the nest comb, until the 

 weight is balanced in the centre. The bees then have to 

 shorten the cell that presses against the nest comb. In 

 turning the hives over to take to the moors, or for any other 

 purpose, his bar-frames all tumble-together whichever way 

 the hive leans on its side, and so crash and till the bees be- 

 tween the loaded combs. Mr. Woodbury's notched bar also 

 rests upon the floor-board, and so prevents all the dirt being 

 easily removed out of the hive from behind it. In my im- 

 proved bar-frame hives the notched bar is fised on the ends 

 of the hive, and the hive can be turned over on its sides or 

 in any other way when the cover is screwed down, and not 

 a single bar-frame or comb can get out of its place. Many 

 Woodbury-hives have been altered to my plan, and their 

 owners all say it is a great improvement. It does not in 

 the least interfere with any manipulations in taking out or 

 putting in the frames, but rather assists the bee-master in 

 guiding the combs exactly to their place again when put 

 back in the hive. — William: Cake, Clayton Bridge Apiary, 

 Newton Heath, near Mancliester. 



[The foregoing objection is wholly imaginary. When a 

 comb of moderate thickness is fised in its place in the centre 

 of a bar, it is absolutely impossible so to distribute the 

 weight of honey which it will contain as to cause its frame 

 to deviate even in the slightest degree from the perpen- 

 dicular. Whenever this occurs after a frame is filled with 

 comb, it must be attributed to defective workmanship in 

 the frames themselves. If a hive is to be turned on its side 

 or inverted, the combs and frames should be secured ac- 

 cordingly; but we regret to learn that Woodbury-hives have 

 been tampered with in the way described by Mr. Carr, as 

 notched bars have not been discarded from them without 

 sufficient reason. jSo frames can be readily or conveniently 

 manipulated which have to be dropped into notches, and it 

 makes no difference in this respect whether these be in the 

 centre or at the ends of the frames.] 



ABE BEES CABXIYOEOUS? 



Without wishing to give any offence, or be considered 

 nnpolite in doubting a lady's word, I cannot but think that 

 bees do not eat meat; and I shall be glad to hear what 

 your able correspondent, " A Devonshire Bee-keepee's " 

 opinion is on this subject, as I have so often observed when 

 bees have been said to eat this, that, or the other that has 

 been put i ito their hives, that they have only taken it out 

 to get rid of it, as witness the grains of candied honey and 

 undissolved sugar, &c, they bring out ; but when I have a 

 hive that I do not care for I will certainly give them some 

 meat, and then watch them closely to see if they do consume 

 it.— A. W. 



[My opinion is identical with your own; but we shall 

 soon have the matter placed beyond doubt, since "E. S." 

 has responded to the appeal in page 246 by submitting the 

 alleged carnivorous propensities of bees to the test of expe- 

 riment, and will ere long be in a position to report the 

 result. — A Devonshire Bee-keepee. 



We have another communication on the same subject 

 decidedly evidencing that bees are not carnivorous. It will 

 appear in our columns nest week. — Eds.] 



Tuesday. After allowing the bees to communicate with the 

 strange queen through zinc for some hours, I let her go 

 down into the hive ; shortly after I had to release her from 

 a cluster of workers, and had some difficulty in getting her 

 from two bees who had her firmly pinioned by each wing. 

 The nest day about 3 p.m., after great management and 

 caution on my part, she was received with the greatest 

 affection, and pollen was taken into the hive. 



The bees do not as a rule sling the queens, but smother 

 them. This, however, may depend on the temper of the 

 bees : some are much more irritable than others. 



Have any of your correspondents noticed that the wasps 

 eat the bees alive in their hives ? They eat the soft part 

 of the body, leaving the trunk and head walking about the 

 floor-board. This is only, I believe, in weak stocks ; strong 

 hives do not, I think, suffer in general from them. — J. L. 



[There is very great uncertainty attending the intro- 

 duction of a strange queen, and you were very fortunate in 

 inducing your bees to accept the alien monarch after they 

 had once imprisoned her. We have on more than one oc- 

 casion known queens destroyed after they had been per- 

 mitted to lay eggs, and have often seen queens stung by 

 workers. 



We can confirm your statement as to the way in which 

 wasps serve living bees. We have seen them treat both 

 bees and daddy longlegs in this manner.] 



UNITING QUEEN TO BEES— WASPS EAT BEES. 



I think the want of success in introducing Ligurian 

 queens into stocks of black bees, is in consequence of allow- 

 ing the queen to go into the hive too soon after the removal 

 of the black queen. 



I find that fumigation injures the constitution of the bees ; 

 and although they appear to recover perfectly, the mortality 

 afterwards is very great and rapid. The queen does not 

 appear to suffer so much from the fumes as her subjects. 



I have just placed a Ligurian queen at the head of a 

 black stock with perfect success. On Monday last I received 

 from Mr. Woodbury by train a Ligurian queen, and lost no 

 time in removing the black lady from one of my stocks on 



BEES AND THEIR MANAGE AIENT. 

 (Concluded from page 302.) 

 Now for one of the greatest difficulties in this department 

 of bee management which I ever encountered, but yet com- 

 bined with one of the most striking and instructive facts in 

 the natural history of the bee which I ever witnessed. My 

 first and best swarm came out about eleven o'clock in the 

 morning of Whit-Monday. It was soon hived and protected 

 from the intense heat by the shade of a kitchen table-cloth 

 and an umbrella. In about an hour and a half afterwards 

 another swarm was on the wing, and just as I had secured 

 it the first swarm left its hive, and rising 20 feet or more 

 above its domicile, commenced a gyratory progressive move- 

 ment in the direction of a thick wood about a quarter of a 

 mile distant. I almost despaired, but with two other helpers 

 started at once in hot pursuit, equipped with bee-dress, 

 brush, and hive. The bees made straight for a large ash 

 tree, encompassed with the thick foliage of the surrounding 

 copse, through which they took their course unerringly to a 

 small round hole, scarcely half an inch across, in the upper 

 part of the trunk. I knew the tree well, but was not aware 

 before that it was hollow. The damp had penetrated into 

 some old wound, over which the alburnum had. closed, giving 

 to the trunk the appearance of perfect soundness. My hope 

 of recovering that swarm was at first very slight indeed, 

 but I saved it after all, and in this way. I suspected that, 

 notwithstanding the specious appearance of the tree, it was 

 unsound throughout, and that if I dug between the roots a 

 little below the surface of the soil I might open communi- 

 cation with my bees above. My conclusions were soon veri- 

 fied, and, by dint of digging and cutting, I opened a hole at 

 the bottom of the trunk large enough to admit my hand, 

 and soon obtained evidence, from a mass of fine touchwood 

 raspings, that the bees had been at work with their man- 

 dibles for some days past in scooping out a new domicile in 

 close contiguity with the point of ingress. Only one chance 

 remained for me, and that was to start them afresh by 

 making their new home as uncomfortable as I could. My 

 plans were laid and adopted in a quarter of an hour. I had 

 recourse to the magic puff ball, Lycoperdon giganteum, a 

 piece of which, as large as my fist, I lighted and placed in 

 the hole. The difficulty to displace the air above was at first 

 insuperable ; I could not create a current from the small- 

 ness of the opening above. Three pieces of buff ball I burnt 

 in this way in vain. I nest had recourse to the flame of 

 lighted paper, and in about an hour and a half could just 

 perceive a small quantity of damp smoke issue from the 

 hole, followed by a stream of bees. But, alas ! the smoke 

 soon subsided, and my bees returned. Enocking tne trunk 

 and blowing through the hole with a pair of bellows were 

 equally in vain. My dernier ressort was brimstone — for my 



