June 11, 1885. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
493 
from a gunshot wound. Mr. Peel was no doubt well known to many of 
our readers as the Honorary Secretary of the British Bee-keepers’ Asso¬ 
ciation, a body which he spent much of his time and substance in organ¬ 
ising and supporting. The Standard fays: “ The deceased haying been 
missed from lunche n, and the door of the study being locked, entrance 
was effected by the window, when the rev. gentleman was found lying 
on the hearthrug shot in the left breast wiih a double-barrelled gun 
at his feet, one barrel of which had been discharged, it is supposed, 
with the aid of a poker which was by the side of the deceased. Death 
must have been instantaneous. The deceased had suffered greatly 
from gout in the head and eyes. The jury returned a verdict to the effect 
ihat death was caused by a gunshot wound, but there was no evidence to 
show how it was inflicted.” Mr. Peel was a son of the late Dean of 
Worcester, and a nephew of Sir Robert Peel, the eminent statesmen. 
HONEY SIXPENCE A POUND. 
The competition daily gaining strength in apiarian produce neces¬ 
sitates careful consideration of the question of profitable bee-keeping, and 
this is the more disappointing in that hitherto it has only been necessary 
to point out to the ignorant the means whereby the greatest quantity aDd 
the finest quality of honey could be gathered at the least expenditure of 
time and labour. The result of these attempts is now evident, for the 
vast increase in production has resulted in a continual lowering of prices, 
until now we are confronted with the startling revelation that in the near 
future honey sold in wholesale quantities cannot be expected to realise 
any greater prices than GJ. or 7d. a pound. Worse still is the knowledge 
ibat a good season or a bad one can hardly have any appreciable effect 
irpon prices, as the continual import of foreign honey from America and 
other more fortunately situated countries lhan England in regard to 
■climate, if the annual product of honey be the only point considered, will 
effectually prevent any very great fluctuation of prices even if home pro¬ 
duce amounted to only a few tons of good quality. This being the case, 
there seems to be no other course open to apiarians than after holding out 
. or the largest price which can reasonably be expected to sell at the price 
offered, and then to consider whether taking the expenditure both in time 
and money into consideration in the face of these adverse combinations 
against bee-keeping it is wise to advise others to begin to study an art 
which is already almost worked to death by the merciless driving of the 
competition system, on which modern commercial enterprise seems mainly 
to rely. 
In the good old halcyon days, when honey realised 2s. Gd. a lb. 
without any trouble or difficulty in dispoing of it at that price, one might 
well say that if they did not show their neighbours how to eke out their 
savings they would be acting a part at once unkind anddog-in-the-manger- 
nke. Now all this is changed. The mine is giving out, the seams of 
gold still lie exposed to common view, but no trouble is now bestowed 
upon the working, for the gold when extracted is a glut upon the market. 
The better principle to act upon is, if an individual is persuaded in his 
own mind that the days of profitable bee-keeping, days of 50 and 60 per 
cent, profits are over, and 4 and 5 per cent only can now be maintained, 
to advise no one to become a bee-kesper without first enlightening him as 
to the low price of honey and the trouble he will have in disposing of it 
when produced in large quantities. The greatest difficulty in the matter 
is that there is a limit, and one that has often been attained, in the amount 
which can possibly be taken from one single stock. In that way nothing 
more can be expected, unless by the use of the extractor, an instrument 
■extracting brood, pollen, and not properly ripened honey in one mess, 
worthy of the days of the old skep supremacy. 
Large hives are used already by enlightened bee-masters, and it is 
questionable if larger can be used with a proportionate success to the 
space afforded, for the laying powers of the most fertile queen are heavily 
taxed by a 20-inch Pettigrew skep. There is one help to bee-keeping of 
a valuable and undoubtedly useful kind, in that it saves an immensity of 
toil to the bees, and honey to their masters. The use of comb foundation 
is one of the real benefits conferred upon all the fraternity of beeists by 
the advanced section, all other helps fade in the face of it and become 
dwarfed by its side. There are many very ridiculous theories, some call 
them facts, concerning the amount of honey necessarily used in comb- 
building. Scientific men talk of 20 lbs. of honey being used to form 1 lb. 
of wax. One proof that such a theory is false can be adduced briefly and 
■concisely. If 50 lbs. of syrup made in equal proportions of sugar and 
water be given to 7 or 8 lbs. of bees in a 20-inch Pettigrew skep in 
autumn, in about a fortnight the hive will be full of comb and brood, and 
will contain honey sufficient to carry it through the longest English 
winter. In such a hive there is considerably more than 2 lbs. of comb, 
and this is satisfactory proof when the amount of syrup consumed by 
brood is considered, the amount necessary to winter a hive successfully 
and well, and the waste, for there must be some, is deducted to prove 
irrefutably that nothing like 20 lbs. of syrup is requisite to the formation 
■of 1 lb. of comb, and as syrup cannot be equal in its properties as the 
main ingredient of comb to natural honey, so no other clearer demonstra¬ 
tion of the falsity of the above widely disseminated theory seems 
necessary. 
The use, then, of comb foundation is one means of increasing the honey 
yield, and it is probable that as greater difficulty is gradually experienced 
in selling comb honey, ekes, and nadirs, and large supers from which one- 
third greater weight of equal quality to that from sections can always be 
taken, will once more come into vogue as the most profitable means, 
being least expensive and troublesome, of taking honey for the market. 
The principles of management to secure the best return in the present 
unfavourable state of prices had better be considered more fully and in 
detail on some future occasion, but it may not be here out of place to 
express the certainty with which many look forward to the time when 
they will be able to use honey, not as a luxury, but as a necessary, means 
ing, of course, ihat being reduced in price it will be in reach of all. No 
doubt such a result is pleasant in the eyes of the consumer, but whether 
he will be really benefited by such a reduction is more than question¬ 
able. Honey can be produced by many artificial ways, equal in the eye 
of any but a connoisseur to the most limpid nectar of the finest of our 
flowers, from the lordly Sugar cane and the lowly Beet. Such a course 
cannot be too severely deprecated, but as surely as a fictitious cheapness 
renders honey not worth the trouble of produc'ion, an adulteration will 
take the price of the real article.— Felix, Cheshire. 
Industry of Bees. —Few people have any idea of the labour that bees 
have to exp-nd in the gathering of honey. Here is a calculation which will 
show how industrious the “busy ” bee really is. Let us suppose the insects 
confine their attentions to Clover fields. Each head of Clover contains about 
sixty separate flower tubes, in each of which is a portion of sugar not 
exceeding the five-hundredth part of a grain. Therefore, before one grain of 
sugar can be got, the bee must insert its proboscis into 500 Clover tubes. 
Now there are 7000 grains in a pound, so that it follows that 3,500,000 Clover 
tubes must be sucked in order to obtain but one pound of honey .—(Irish 
Farmers' Gazette.) 
TRADE CATALOGUE RECEIVED. 
Ant. Roozen & Son, Overveen, Haarlem, Holland .—Catalogue of Cape 
and Dutch Bulbs. 
*** 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. 
Pears Destroyed by Grubs (H. W. G.). —The young fruit you enclose 
are infested by the grub or maggot of a small fly, probably belonging to the 
genus Sciara, but the exact species can only be determined by rearing the 
perfect insect. There are a number of flies, mostly very minute, which 
attack the blossoms and fruit of the Pear, belonging to the genus Sciara and 
Cecidomyia ; in some instances as many as twenty of their maggots may be 
turned out of one fruit. They pursue different methods, and even the same 
species varies its plan in some seasons. The attack may be made upon the 
blossom in such a manner that it withers off, and the fruit is not formed ; at 
other times, as in the examples you send, the young Pears, soon after they 
have set, begin to shrivel and decay; and it also frequently happens that 
the insects live on without at first destroying the vitality of the fruit, but 
at length it succumbs, and generally falls unripened. There is no apparent 
reason why wall trees should be less liable than standards. We fear it is 
difficult to suggest a remedy, the process of catching such tiny flies in the 
act of depositing eggs would be a very tedious one. Prompt removal and 
burning of all blossoms or fruit seen to be infected appears to be the only 
plan. 
Exhibiting Vegetables (A. B.). —As you do not describe the nature of 
the Show, whether it is for representing produce suitable for cottagers’ 
families or for the tables of the affluent, we can only advise you to stage the 
very best examples of culture you possess. If all are alike good we should 
exclude the Cabbages and Lettuce from a collection if the Show is of the 
last-named character; but if of the former we should include these and 
exclude something less substantial. As a rule, however, it is wise to 
exclude a faulty dish, whatever it may be, if one as near perfect as 
possible can be substituted. If you act on that principle you will not be 
far wrong. Guano is sold by most vendors of soils and garden requisites, 
such as Messrs. Herbert & Co,, Hop Exchange Warehouse, Southwark; 
Kennard, Swan Place, Old Kent Road; and Ward & Co., 7, Wormwood 
Street, E.C., who have recently advertised in our columns, and whose names 
we mention aphabetically. 
Cyclamens not Growing ( C. P. L.). —There is no disease in the corms 
sent. The seedlings have been kept too dry at some time, either at the 
roots or in the atmosphere. If they have been on a shelf and not shaded 
the sun has extracted the moisture from the leaves faster than a supply has 
been afforded by the roots for maintaining growth. A warm humid atmo¬ 
sphere is requisite for growing seedling Cyclamens without check, and the 
pots should stand on a moist base, not a dry shelf. When the plants grow 
vigorously there is almost invariably a film of water between the inner and 
