118 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ February 5, 1885. 
inches of the past season’s wood; on the contrary, the closer they are cut 
the stronger they break into growth. If the plants contain a large 
number of small growths they should be thinned out liberally, so that the 
strength of the plants can be concentrated. A few well-developed shoots 
that will flower from 1 foot to 18 inches of their length is always m >re 
useful and effective than double the quantity of small weaker shoots. 
After cutting back these plants should be grown in a similar temperature 
to that in which they stood while in flower. Any light position in a 
structure that can be kept somewhat close where the temperature does 
not fall below 45° at night will do for them until they have well started 
into growth. After they have once started into growth the sooner they 
are carefully and gradually hardened to cool treatment the hotter. When 
confined in a close atmosphere too long they grow weakly and soon 
exhaust themselves, for the least possible check afterwards will frequently 
stop their growth. 
Daphne indica .—These beautiful fragrant flowering plants are 
frequently injured by undue forcing to bring them into flower. They 
dislike heat or a close confined atmosphere, and yet they are too often 
subjected to such treatment, which they resent by turning a sickly yellow, 
losing their foliage, and eventually dying. Forcing may be done, how¬ 
ever, without injury to the plants provided fire heat is not employed and 
the plants are only subjected to a close atmosphere for two or three weeks 
to hasten the development of their flowers, they being again gradually 
hardened to cool treatment. The best and healthiest plants of Daphne 
we have ever seen were never forced but allowed to flower naturally and 
wintered in cold frames, the pots being plunged to protect their roots 
from frost, no other protection being given. 
i~ — y—2 ——i ■. . ■, . , . ,—i—;—pgrnsTrrgTt i.r-— 
9^ 
111 
IE BEE-KEEPER/ 
ni.-— |i;| (- i - | . i . | . i - | - | - i - | . | . , . i - i . | - r- i . ] - t , | . , - | . j - , - | - [ . 
SEASONABLE NOTES ON BEES. 
The first month of another year has quickly passed away, and 
although the time is yet some long way ahead when the bees will 
call us into activity among th9 hives, yet now is the season for 
preparation. Let all bee-keepers take time by the forelock, and when 
the flowers appear and the merry workers begin their new year’s 
harvest let not their owners be found with their share of work in 
arrears. With the bees themselves all should still be rest, undis¬ 
turbed quiet. With the lengthening days the sun will soon so 
warm the atmosphere when west winds blow that bees will most 
frequently take an airing, and more food will be consumed. It is 
well, therefore, that it be known for certain that plenty of food is 
within easy reach of the cluster. Should any hives have gone into 
winter quarlers with an insufficient supply of stores, the bee-keeper 
may now seize the first opportunity to supply the want. This should 
be done with the greatest care and caution. The quilts should 
be only lifted to such an extent as to render it possible to place a 
cake of candied sugar on the top of the frames over the ball of bees. 
We do not recommend disturbing the frames and passing the food 
between them or among the bees. This might lead to much mischief 
by causing the mass of bees to separate. Except for feeding in 
such a case of necessity no examination of stocks should yet be made. 
When February is drawing to a close then more earnest work will 
commence. We have given the recipe for the candy in a former 
number of the Journal. It is well to add to the sugar some of the 
salycilic acid solution. 
More than at any other time of year there is now danger of 
dysenteric symptoms among bees. We have had a long spell of 
such weather as prevents bees leaving their hives, and yet the 
frost here in the south of England has not been of such 
vigour as to keep them perfectly quiet. During such weather 
stores are consumed and a certain amount of activity continues 
in the hive, whereas the bees do not get abroad for natural pur¬ 
poses of relief, and this often leads to an attack of dysentery. 
If hives are kept warm, and, what is even of greater importance, 
thoroughly dry and ventilated, there will be little to fear from a 
lengthened imprisonment. But where all means of ventilation are 
wanting, either through covering the frames with crown-boards or 
some surface impervious to the air, from allowing the floor-boards 
to become saturated, the mouth of the hive blocked by dead bees ; 
or, as we have traced one severe case, through the owner placing his 
bees in a thorough draught—were all or any of these errors or 
omissions prevail there dysentery may assume a virulent form. We 
particularly speak of this disease in this letter because we have had 
two cases lately under our observation. One could only be traced to 
the fact that the bees stood in a shed between an open doorway and 
an open flap, by which access to the hive was given. Whatever wind 
blew it caused a draught sufficient to turn a small windmill. The bees 
were in a dry skep well filled with comb. They were not clustering 
on cold slaps of honey, but on dry partly empty combs. They were 
sufficiently powerful to have kept up a good temperature, and they 
had sufficient sealed food. There was nothing to answer for the 
attack of dysentery, which was getting very bad, except the current 
of air in which they constantly stood. The other case was at once 
accounted for. Bees driven very late in the autumn, and fed 
rapidly on thin syrup, had clustered on cells full of uncapped food. 
The evaporation from this and its subsequent condensation had sub¬ 
jected them to a constant shower bath, and doubtless the food has 
also been becoming more and more unwholesome through fermenta¬ 
tion. In such a case a severe attack of dysentery was not to be 
wondered at, but rather expected. In the first case part of the cure 
consisted in the prevention of the draught. The doorway was 
boarded up, and both hives await other measures, which we promise 
to carry out on the first day favourable to our operations. 
There may be readers who have hives, or whose neighbours have 
hives in a similar plight, and we will therefore say what we intend 
doing to arrest the disease. With the skep we shall proceed as 
follows. When the sun and a good rise in the thermometer tempt 
the bees out for a flight we shall prepare some warm syrup with a 
dose of the acid solution. Having reversed the hive this will be 
sprinkled over bees and comb, and a small quantity fed from the roof 
after the hive is replaced on its floor-board. Of course the latter will 
be scrupulously cleaned, or, what is better, a fresh one put in its 
stead. This will be repeated the next fine day, and, as in other 
instances, we shall hope to see the hive soon return to its normal con¬ 
dition of health. The other case is in a bar-frame hive. With this 
we shall act differently. The cluster must be disturbed and sprinkled 
with the medicated food as above, but we shall take out all combs 
with unsealed food, and contract the bees on to clean dry slabs, with 
empty cells to cluster od. If sufficient combs are not at hand we 
shall pass the frames through the extractor ; and if there be not 
sufficient sealed food we shall give a slab of candy ovei' the cluster, 
making all warm and snug after, and contracting the entrance after 
cleansing the floor-board. 
Bee-keepers should not allow the season for planting to pass by 
without availing themselves of the opportunity to put in tit-bits for 
their favourites. We have on other occasions called attention to those 
plants and shrubs, which are best to plant for bees. We do not say 
that it is possible to add materially to the season’s honey harvest by 
putting the few favourite flowers in one’s garden or near one’s apiary. 
In order to make the year’s produce appreciably greater we should 
have to sow and plant by the rood or acre. It is, however, very 
pleasant to see our little workers revelling on the flowers of such 
plants as Limnanthes Douglasii, or to watch them darting out 
between the showers of early springtime, and sipping here and there, 
so daintily, so methodically, from the pendent little bells of the 
Gooseberry. We have the great pleasure of knowing that, although 
the pilferings will all be eaten up by the hungry brood, yet our prop 
of fruit is being guaranteed, and that should the smiles of April be 
like angel’s visits, few and far between, we may nevertheless already 
see the laden boughs, red and white and yellow Gooseberries glisten¬ 
ing in July’s heat. And how about those monster luscious Straw¬ 
berries that the neighbours are always talking about ? Although we 
take to ourselves some of the trouble, and therefore do not deny our¬ 
selves a modicum of the praise, yet to our little winged fairies do we 
owe more ; for in a catch y blossoming time do we not see much 
fruit red and ripe on one side and green and hard and shrivelled on 
the other, when we hunt for it in plantations where few bees revel, 
while in the neighbourhood of the hives the ceaselessly busy fertilisers 
improve each shining hour ? Then let everyone plant for his bees, 
and bees and planter will profit. We grow many varieties for our 
bees, but they seem to revel on none so much as on the Limnanthes, 
and it will grow anywhere—in the richest soil or on the pathway. 
Once planted it will yield its hundreds of self-sown seedlings every 
season. Wallflowers, Myosotis, Thyme, Veronica, Ribes, London 
Pride, Arabis albida, French Honeysuckle, Crocuses, and Willows are 
among the best of honey and pollen-yielding plants to surround an 
apiary, while scarlet and white climbing Beans always secure atten¬ 
tion and yield accordingly, and bush fruit returns good measure 
pressed down running over. Solanums raised in a greenhouse, and 
kept there or in frames, yielded few berries Last season we stood a 
batch of plants, plunged in a bed of cocoa-fibre refuse, just in front 
of the bee shed. The result was such a mass of lovely orange 
berries all through the dark winter months as are rarely seen— 
boughs weighed down with fruit.—P. H. P. 
THE BRITISH HONEY COMPANY. 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper,” on page 99, inquires “ What has the 
British Bee-keepers’ Association done to help the honey producers? 
The Lincolnshire Association annually holds a fair for the disposal of 
members’ honey, which has always been a success; but the British Bee¬ 
keepers’ Association has never followed the example and started one in 
London or elsewhere.” Before “ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper ” made such 
an assertion as this he should have ascertained the facts. Had he taken 
