April 2, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
279 
annually taken from the hive of straw and simple con¬ 
struction. 
The absolute necessaries to ordinary bee-keeping on the 
flat-topped Pettigrew straw hive system of keeping, so long 
and so ably advocated by the originator of the large skep 
movement in this Journal, are very few, simple, and inex¬ 
pensive. For one stock hive the total outlay for appliances 
of every kind, for hives, for swarms, covers, boards, all com¬ 
bined, ought not to exceed £2, and may, with ingenuity, be 
reduced to a much smaller sum. This would not buy a good 
wooden hive, section crates, extractors, and hives for swarms. 
Mr. A. Pettigrew estimates—and he had forty years’ experi¬ 
ence—that, one year with another, the nett profit from his 
system was £1 a hive, or fifty per cent. Can the bar-framists 
substantiate any claim to a larger profit ? It will be useful 
to note their reply, if any be given. To the student of 
natural history the bar hive is a very useful adjunct to his 
persevering researches, but to the “ profit seeker ” in nine 
cases out of ten it is a hook, baited so nicely and so exqui¬ 
sitely painted with rivers of gold, that many are caught, and 
if only they are able to escape from their entanglement with¬ 
out loss are thankful to throw over for ever bee-keeping of 
every description. 
I have tried bar-frame hives and straw skeps, and the yield 
from the one has been as great as the yield from the other—per¬ 
haps a little larger in the case of the bar-frame hive ; but then 
the cost of the hive was so great as at once to reduce the profit 
to less than that derived from the other. The bar-frame hives 
are home-made, and accordingly comparatively inexpensive, 
and bees have wintered in them quite successfully with only 
ordinary care; but the simplicity of the other system is so 
perfect, and time to manipulate is so little, that the skep has 
proved to be the by far most suitable channel from which to 
gather profit. To dealers in bee furniture the adoption of 
the skep system would be ruin. A 20-inch straw Pettigrew 
only costs 5s.—mark it well, ye novices !—and will yield from 
80 to 300 lbs. of beautiful honey in a good season, while 
in a bad one the cost of keeping the bees in health is trifling. 
Expensive hives lead to disappointment and failure. In 
most cases the simplest possible arrangement is the best, and 
doubly so in keeping bees. “Manipulate, manipulate, mani¬ 
pulate,” cry the advanced practitioners. The answer is, 
“ We have not time to spare.” The country clergyman with 
a small parish may find time lagging on so slowly that he is 
glad to waste it on his bees ; not so the man who has to toil 
to earn his daily bread. Let all, then, be careful not to be 
led astray by the gilded romances of enthusiastic fanatics in 
the cause of bee culture, but carefully weigh in their minds 
the issue here pointed out, Whether to attain the same end 
a great or small capital outlay is the best with no corre¬ 
sponding advantage on the side of the greater expenditure to 
compensate for the greater effort required to spare it where 
funds are often low and spare money is quite out of the 
question. 
Again, it is astonishing to find how great the profits 
made are in many instances, but this astonishment is con¬ 
siderably lessened when on questioning it is found that no 
regular accounts are kept. Where this is the case no reliance 
can be placed upon any statement of profit, for in nothing 
are there so many small expenses as in bee-keeping, and 
“ small expenses ” mount rapidly to a large sum if not 
rigorously kept down. Spend not a penny unless a return 
for it can be seen; and yet it must be remembered, that 
although economy is good, parsimony will soon do a great 
amount of harm. Spend wisely, then, when necessary, but 
let the necessity be always present. There is only one more 
point to touch upon in this paper, and that is institutions for 
the aid of honey producers to sell their goods at a fair price. 
Here, then, there is to be an introduction of the middleman 
to this industry. The benevolent shareholders of such an in¬ 
stitution or company require a profit, and therefore, says the 
Bee Journal (15th March, 1885), bee-keepers will have to be 
content with a less price for their honey in order to ensure a 
“ small profit ” for the shareholders. In another instance, 
it is stated that “ a good profit ” must be obtained, therefore 
the logical conclusion is that the price must be lower still. 
Only a very short comment is necessary after the correspon¬ 
dence in this Journal, and that is : If the company is started 
as a public company, well and good ; but to come before the 
public with the heralds going before proclaiming the benevo¬ 
lent ideas which originated the undertaking—the wish to 
benefit the bee-keeping public, keeping in the background 
the good profit, and playing the good Samaritan in the fore 
front of the picture—is really more than human nature can 
stand without indignant protest. It is preposterous ; honey 
producers want no such spurious aid. They hate friendly 
societies upon such a basis, and with all their might should 
strive to prevent anyone from becoming a promoter of a 
cause which, if carried to the end in view, cannot but reduce 
the value of honey to so low a price as to make its produc¬ 
tion anything but a paying business or lucrative pastime. If 
a middleman is necessary, let him be an individual; if help 
to sell honey is necessary, let assistance be organised on a 
basis just sufficient to pay expenses. It is not monopoly 
that is desired, but protection from false friends. It need 
not be said that there may be very sincere attempts made to 
benefit others, which not only do not benefit, but the con¬ 
trary effect is produced by such ill-directed efforts to attain 
a noble end. And it is so in the present case. Such friends 
of bee-keepers uniting to benefit the industry will destroy it 
utterly if the public, forewarned and forearmed, do not withhold 
their assistance, which if given means suicide of profitable 
bee-keeping. —Felix, Cheshire. 
HOW CLOSE IS THE CONNECTION ? 
Ip Mr. J. Hewitt or any other bee-keeper can conceive any scheme 
for the advancement of bee-keeping, I for one shall be only too pleased, 
and they will soon find plenty of friends ; but the latest piece of fault¬ 
finding by “ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper ” about Mr. Huckle and Mr. 
Blow’s catalogues is not in my opinion the best method of proceeding. 
Most bee-keepers know how nearly allied the British Bee Journal, 
the Biitish Bee-keepers’ Association, and the British Honey Company are 
to one another, and yet how thoroughly distinct they are. Surely none 
of us can object to any company lawfully trading in honey, and if they 
give as good a price as other people and pay cash I doubt not but that 
they will get a fair share of trade. I shall be called an interested party, 
but I have not applied for any shares, neither am I a member of the 
British Bee-keepers’ Association. The British Bee Journal, as well as 
the Journal of Horticulture, I get through W. H. Smith & Son, but 
still I find I get not only Mr. Blow’s but other makers’ catalogues. Mr. 
Huckle has evidently been employed by these manufacturers to circulate 
their catalogues, but this to me only speaks well for the acuteness of these 
manufacturers ; but those who succeed in getting elaborate descriptions of 
new hives, &c., and foreign races of bees that they have for sale inserted 
in the columns of the British Bee Journal, only give expression to the 
same trait of character in a different form. 
Mr. Hewitt points out that it is against bee-keepers’ interest for us to 
increase the number of bee-keepers, and consequently the competition ; 
yet I have induced a few to keep bees, and hope to persist in that course, 
although some of your previous correspondents say no one is benefited 
but the hive makers. It would be equally just to assert that the National 
British Bee-keepers’ Union was being formed for. the benefit of some 
obscure individuals who want a snug and lucrative post.—A Local 
Advisee. 
KILLING BEES IN THE AUTUMN. 
I was rather disappointed with “ A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper's ” reply 
) Mr W. Kruse on page 221; not that I have any fault to liud with what 
e does say, but I think he might have suggested how to manage the 
ees without having to kill them at any time. I am quite at one with bun 
ad Mr. Kruse that it is more humane to kill the bees at once rather than 
finin'* two or three together on foundation and feeding them with syrup 
>r winter; but I would rather so manage things that the bees will be 
inverted into honey before the autumn, which I would do in this way. 
upposing I had twenty stocks in straw skeps—the best of all hives for 
inter and profit to the bees—I should expect twenty swarms from them ; 
lese I would hive in bar-frame hives, and their management would give 
n insight into this system. Immediately after Lime bloom 1 would 
nite the twenty swarming into five, joining the brood combs and bees ot 
>ur lots together for the Heather, piling supers on the top, extract the 
oney from the broodless combs and store them away for next season, 
should take each to the moors separate and join them there. By tlie 
me the Heather was over the bees would be reduced in numbers so as 
i make one good stock, so many more bees having been set at liberty to 
