406 
JOURNAL OF HORTICUL1URE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 14, 1885. 
impress bee-keepers with its great importance. I consider his answer, as 
well as the context, a most unsatisfactory reply. He continues to say 
that, “ Like all other things, the system of stimulative feeling may be 
abused instead of being carefully used.” Now, I hold that stimulative 
feeding in ninety-nine cases out of the hundred id mischievous and un¬ 
called for, and only betrays bad management previously on the part of the 
owner. Tour correspondent then adds, “ We have always written against 
what to us seems the folly of raising stock to swarming power in 
March,” &c.—an impossibility in most places in the United Kingdom. 
In the south of England it may be done, which I will advert to hereafter ; 
qut no allusion was made to bringiag bees to swarming power in March 
in his article (page 180) which evoked my query, he says: “ We have 
often in this Journal warned those who have bees against beginning to 
stimulate their queens to breed too early in the year. There is nothing 
gained by having a lot of brood hatched out in the cold spring weather. 
Often the effect is the reverse of gain ; the sure course of dwindling.” 
March is not mentioned there, nor does he state at what time “ the cold 
spring weather ” occurs. The whole sentence is vague and liable to 
mislead. 
I have repeatedly shown that stimulative feeding is a mistake, and 
ought not to be practised unless with very weak hives or nuclei, and with 
these only when they are in want. When sugar sold from 8d. to Is. 
per lb., stimulative feeding was then resorted to with light hives to tide 
them over until the fruit blossoms appeared. Since the sugar was reduced 
in price for the last thirty or forty years the system in well-managed 
apiaries was abandoned, as it was observed then, and is more and more 
confirmed every year since, that unfed hives are the most profitable. 
If the bee-keeper wishes to be successful with bees let him during the 
month of September—or better, in August—set aside his stock hives con- 
taining young fertile queens with plenty of bees—say, 5 lbs.—with not 
less than 30 lbs. of honey ; better if it should be 40 lbs., as that quantity, 
as a rule, does away entirely with spring feeding, and observe, with such 
a hive occupying a dozen frames larger than the standard size, there is no 
need for contraction. The British Bee Journal compares honeycombs to 
blocks of ice in a hive! but with more experience they and others will 
find that it is safer to have Nature’s food as it was designed, keeping the 
bees at rest during the treacherous season, than, by confining them to a few 
combs, keeping them constantly in a state of commotion, causing the 
queen to exhaust her egg-laying power by depositing more than the bees 
can hatch, and which are destroyed by them. This is brought about by 
confining the bees in such an overcrowded state, and which, leaving the 
heated hive, are killed by the chilling winds. This thins the ranks of the 
adult bees often to such an extent that the brood perishes ; hence the 
cause of dwindling, which is avoided in such hives as I have advised to be 
kept. My best hives are those that do not require feeding, and none of 
them, frame nor Stewarton, are contracted. 
When hives require contracting to five or six combs I always consider 
there has been some fault in the management. Nor do I consider con¬ 
tracting hives having full combs of honey judicious. Tho space a comb 
occupies in some hives is about 250 inches, but if the comb is full there is 
only about 80 or 90 inches of space, all necessary for the health of the 
bees. A hive over-large is safer, and in many cases is more healthy, than 
one so contracted as to stifle the bees and make them uncomfortable and 
excited. With a well-stocked and provisioned hive with a young fertile 
queen, breeding commences as a rule about Christmas, and continues 
gradually increasing its brood nest as the year advances, and when March 
appears I have often found the hive from one-third to half full of brood, 
and sometimes more. I would not attempt to check this ; but if it could 
be proved that it was necessary to do so I would ventilate from beneath ; 
but with us swarms never come too early. I have mentioned the impossi¬ 
bility of bringing bees to the swarming point in March, unless in the 
south. I do not know whether your correspondent has experienced such 
or not ; if he has, it would be interesting to hear all about these forward 
hives, as well as full particulars why supers can be had from frame hives 
and not from straw ones in Kent or Herefordshire. 
It takes a good swarm in a proper-sized hive about six weeks after it 
has been hived to come to swarming point again. At the expiration of 
that time, if all has gone well, it is in the highest state of perfection for 
gathering stores, equal to a non-swarming hive. A newly swarmed hive 
will, if furnished with comb foundation, the weather and flowers being 
suitable, make about 1 lb. daily for about eight days for every pound of 
bees ; but after that time until the young bees are hatching it falls off in 
its gathering daily. Let it be observed that to make the most of bees 
they should all be swarmed from three to six weeks before the honey glut 
is expected, which occurs in many places from the middle of June till the 
middle of July, and then the Heather comes. Therefore, we always 
aim at having May swarms, and cultivate the system of having young 
queens in readiness to supply stock as soon as possible after swarming. 
In Kent it is said that the honey harvest commences about the end of 
April and is finished towards end of May. Many years ago Mr. S. Bevan 
Fox, writing on the Stewarton hive, made a statement that for all the 
Stewarton hives imported into England he was not aware of a single 
super obtained from that hive. This prompted a reply from me, and in 
turn letters from gentlemen supportingMr. Fox’s views appeared, butasking 
information how to manage bees to get supers from both Stewarton as 
well as other hives. 1 replied to these letters, and I am glad, as I was 
then, to say that I observed a letter from one of the gentlemen recording 
his success in getting, so far as he knew, the first Stewarton super in 
England. Then I had still further satisfaction to hear privately from 
other parties with both kind of hives, straw and wood, that they had been 
equally successful. 
I have a quarter of a century more experience with frame hives than 
the majority of bee-keepers, who in many cases have not more than from 
six to ten years. Therefore, I have full knowledge of the superiority of a 
properly constructed frame hive over straw ones, but it is simply absurd 
to say that supers cannot be had from straw hives simultaneously, or under 
the same conditions as frame hives. 
I have said that in most places in the United Kingdom it is impossible 
to bring bees to the swarming point in March by artificial means, because 
any manipulation during January or February would prove fatal to the 
bees, particularly so in the first month. It takes three weeks from the time 
the egg is laid till it is hatched, and as long after hatching before they take a 
flight, and the same time will elapse before a single bee will take to out¬ 
door labour—I mean during the spring months. In summer the time of 
evolution is about eighteen days, five days more till they take a flight, 
and as a rule another three weeks before they work outside. 
Where bees are situated in such places as Kent, where the honey 
season is in April and May, is it not proper that stocks should be nearly 
at the swarming point during March and April ? This can be effected by 
proper management, but never where stimulative feeding is adhered to, 
and the still worse practice of spreading the brood and contracting the 
hive to force bees into supers before the hive is half populated. 
The dividing board is my own contrivance, and I have used it for 
thirty-five years ; but I never abused it by cramming the bees on as few 
combs as possible one week, then foolishly spreading the brood the next. 
A uniform degree of temperature is desirable at all times, and when the 
bee-keeper attends to this success is sure to follow. I never intended the 
dividing board should be used in such a way as recommended by your 
correspondent. I use it only for weak swarms or nuclei, preferring at all 
times to have my hives in such a state at the fall that they require no 
contracting. Such strong hives do not require it, and are always the best ; 
besides, the combs and honey is always better for the bees when it is kept 
where it should be—inside the hive, and the earlier the district is the 
greater the necessity to keep such hives as I have alluded to. Hives con¬ 
taining no brood during March, even in our district where the honey flow 
does not begin till the middle of June, is too late to be profitable ; but young 
bees I never observed were detrimental to the hive, neither can I see 
where the young bees of a hive more forward than its neighbours are 
more liable to work mischief than those with fewer young ones. 
Cold chilling winds are not injurious to bees in spring. My advice to 
those who wish to be successful is to keep strong hives in autumn well 
provisioned, and avoid stimulative feeding and the spreading of brood, 
both of which are destructive to the bees, and uncalled for during any 
time of the year, particularly so in spring. If feeding is necessary, 
give sufficient to meet the requirements of the bees, and they will progress 
more regularly, and give better satisfaction than by resorting to 
manipulation which even its advocates have doubts about.— A Lanark¬ 
shire Bee-keeper. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
W. Bull, King’s Road, Chelsea.— Catalogue of Neio , Beautiful, and Bare 
Plants ( illustrated). 
Charles Frazer, Palace Plain, Norwich.— Catalogue of Horticultural 
Buildings (illustrated). 
The iEolus General Ventilating Company, 235, High Holborn, W.C.— 
Catalogue of Ventilating Apparatus (illustrated). 
* J All correspondence should be directed either to “The Editor ' 
or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. Hogg or 
members of the staff often remain unopened unavoidably. We 
request that no one will write privately to any of our correspon¬ 
dents, as doing so subjects them to unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions relat¬ 
ing to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should never 
send more than two or three questions at once. All articles in¬ 
tended for insertion should be written on one side of the paper 
only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, and we 
do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
Insects on Peas (G. W.). —Instead of the enemy being “almost” dried 
up, it was dried entirely, until there appeared to he nothing left to examine. 
Insects and specimens must arrive fresh for purposes of examination. 
Water Spreader (G. B .).—We must decline the responsibility of 
advising you on the matter, success depending as much on business aptitude 
as on the intrinsic merits of an article. You had better exhibit it at some 
horticultural shows, and if it finds ready favour you can easily have it 
registered and thus protect yourself for a time, taking further and more 
costly steps afterwards if you deem it advisable. 
