November 8, 1SG1. ] 



JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 



383 



honey and syrup were extracted the pieces were abandoned, 

 and they have been lying within the hives from the time I 

 inserted them till now, as uncared for as a cast-out maggot. 

 Bees, under certain conditions, when gnawing flesh with 

 a view to its removal, may make use of the juice ; but I am 

 persuaded no amount of fish, flesh, or fowl, would preserve 

 the lives of a famished hive a single day. It is the saccha- 

 rine matter on which bee-keepers must depend for the 

 safety and prosperity of their bees. Next to honey, the best 

 food and most easily procured for feeding purposes, is lump 

 sngar melted in the manner recommended by Mr. Woodbury, 

 the proportions being 3 lbs. of sugar to 2 lbs. of water. — E. S. 



JOINING LIGURIAN BEES TO ENGLISH OR 

 BLACK BEES. 



In the Journal of October 11th, "A. W." says he joins 

 stocks of bees by fumigation. Now, it is decided by bee- 

 masters that fumigation by whatever process it is accom- 

 plished, more or less injures the bees. The great secret of 

 joining bees or uniting stocks is, after having removed one 

 of the queens, to liberally sprinkle each lot to be joined with 

 sugar and water. The bees immediately commence lapping 

 it up. The stock to be joined should then be well sprinkled 

 and shaken down in a mass upon the top of the bars. The 

 bees of each lot commence cleaning one another, and the 

 assistance rendered makes them friends and proves the old 

 saying, "A friend in need is a Mend indeed." If the bees 

 joined are from the same apiary, it is well to confine them 

 in the hive until the next night, when very few bees will go 

 back to their old place. 



I have this last month joined twelve stocks of common 

 bees to my Ligurians, and in some cases have joined the 

 Ligurian bees to a black stock ; but I of course destroyed 

 the black queen in every case. I have not lost on an average 

 more than a dozen bees in each stock joined, and have not 

 had a single failure. It is all nonsense about peppermint 

 scent and all other nostrums. — William Caek. 



[You appear to have been very fortunate in uniting bees 

 this autumn. Following precisely the same course, you may 

 be equally unfortunate next year, as no means have yet been 

 discovered by which we can be absolutely certain of avoiding 

 a quarrel. Be not too hasty in condemning the use of pepper- 

 mint-scented syrup. We believe it to be serviceable in con- 

 founding the sense of smell by which bees are supposed by 

 many to recognise each other. No harm, at any rate, can 

 result from its use.] 



the manager of the Southborough brick field at Kingston, I 

 explained to him what I required, he readily understood me, 

 and made some pots with moveable tops sufficiently large to 

 enable me to put a cap on in summer, and then make use of 

 the top of the cover to protect the cap from getting wet. At 

 the present time I am, of course, using them to cover the 

 stocks only, and to my mind they are an ornament to the 

 garden, but I think that they will be much more so in the 

 summer, when I am using the small straw caps, and the cap 

 covered with the clay top. I have shown the covers to 

 many friends who are interested in bees, and they all pro- 

 nounce them to be good, and I think that if they were gene- 

 rally used we should not hear of so many hives being annually 

 lost through damp. I intend painting the covers with 

 stone-coloured paint, at present they are as I received them 

 from the potteries. — J. W. T., Wandsworth, Surrey. 



BEE-HIVE PROTECTORS. 

 I have been a bee-keeper for several years, and during 

 that time have tried various contrivances for protecting my 

 hives from the weather. Bee-houses I have discarded on 

 account of the large number of bees which I generally lost 

 during the autumn from spiders' webs. Some mornings I 

 have found as many as a dozen bees entangled in the 

 meshes of the spiders' webs, if I omitted to clear the houses 

 early in the morning before the bees ventured out. Large ' 

 straw hives I have also used for coverings, but they also 

 want something to cover them, or during very wet weather 

 the rain is apt to soak through and cause dampness in the 

 hive which they are intended to protect. Some bee- 

 keepers recommend covering the hives with earthenware 

 dishes similar to rnilk-pans. I have also used these, but 

 have found it necessary to have stakes fastened in the 

 ground to secure the covers to, or off they would have come 

 the first windy day. The stakes and the string which are 

 required to keep this description of cover on the hives make 

 it look a very untidy affair. Well, after having tried almost 

 everything that I could think of, I came to the conclusion 

 that something in the shape of a large hive would answer 

 the object I had in view, and could be made to look orna- 

 mental; but as I work my bees on the depriving system, 

 I was at a loss how to contrive a cover which would keep my 

 bees free n-oai damp in the winter, and without removing it 

 enable me to work them in summer. After some little re- 

 flection I determined to have a large clay pot made in the 

 shape of a bee-hive, but with the top moveable like the top 

 of a sea-kale pot. Having some business to transact with 



THE "TIMES'" BEE-MASTER'S BLUNDERS. 

 A good deal of Br. Cumming's nonsense about bees is 

 tolerably harmless ; and had it not most unfortunately ap- 

 peared under the authority of the Times newspaper, would 

 no doubt have been passed over with the silent contempt 

 which no real bee-keeper could help feeling on reading the 

 letters. In your notice of his lecture at Liverpool you quote 

 him as saying, " Swarms always take place between twelve 

 and three o'clock," and you pass over this most mischievous 

 misstatement without correction. Every one who really 

 keeps bees must know that if he never began to watch before 

 twelve o'cIock most of his swarms would be lost, and I 

 cannot imagine a piece of information more likely to ruin 

 the hopes of a beginner. I may as well add that bees on 

 fine days, at swarming time, may be expected to come off at 

 any time from 9 a.m., and even earlier, up to 3 and even 

 4 p.m. — Frank Grant. 



FOUL BROOD. 



On reperusing my notice of foul brood in pages 343 and 

 344 I fear I have not been sufficiently explicit in disclaim- 

 ing all participation in the absurd notion that this disease 

 is due to the mode in which the queens of infected stocks 

 deposit their eggs. If this were really so, no mode of treat- 

 ment would avail in mitigating the disease so long as the 

 faulty queen was retained. I need hardly say that so far 

 from such being the case, a change of queens is not even of the 

 slightest service. My object was merely to draw attention 

 to the fact that in more than one instance diseased brood 

 has been found to be inverted, and to inquire how far this 

 circumstance had come to the knowledge of other observers. 

 — A Devonshire Bee-keepee. 



Deadly Effects of the Tew Teee. — It appears from 

 recent facts which have come under our notice that the Tew - 

 when taken into the animal stomach becomes fatal in its 

 poisonous effects, which proved to be the case a few days 

 since. Some men employed by the Llanelly and Swansea 

 Extension Railway Company had occasion to fell a Tew tree 

 that stood in the way of some cuttings on land in the occu- 

 pation of Mr. John Morgan, Bolgoed, where some cattle 

 belonging to that gentleman happened to be grazing on a 

 field into which the tree fell, when unfortunately one of his 

 best cows, in full profit, browsed some of the Tew leaves, 

 which in a few hours proved fatal. A post mortem exami- 

 nation was made, and proved that among the contents of 

 the stomach was a quantity of Tew in a high state of fer- 

 mentation. Only a few days since we heard of a similar 

 occurrence to a horse belonging to Mr. J. Bailey, of Little- 

 ton Drew. 



To Prevent Cattle from Jumping. — At the last meeting 

 of the Am. Inst. Farmers' Club, the following novel way of 

 preventing cattle from jumping fences was promulgated. 

 Its parentage is good: — "We lately lea:ned a curious 

 remedy to prevent steers from jumping ftnces, which is so 

 easy of application, and appears so effectual that we give it 

 to the public. It is simply to clip off the eyelashes of the 

 upper lids with a pair of scissors, and the ability or disposi- 

 tion to jump is as effectually destroyed as Samson's power 



