February 14, 1884 ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
137 
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THE MILD WEATHER AND BEES. 
This current winter has been perhaps the most open for many 
years. Bees have consequently been more or less on the move in all 
parts of the country ; not so much so in our own apiary as with 
those whose hives stand in warm sunny places. Where bees have 
been unusually active the mortality must have been very great in 
winter. Bee-keepers as a rule are not careful enough to shade the 
entrances to hives, and do all they can to keep the bees in. A flight 
now and then during the winter is most inducive to health, and in 
most winters opportunities for this occur after some three or four 
weeks of captivity. But this season has given by far too many of 
such opportunities, and the consequence is that during sunny weather 
bees have taken longer flights than usual, and many have been out 
never to return. During the winter months birds are much more 
ready to snap up the wanderers ; less food of other sort is available. 
Tomtits are especially voracious at this time of the year, and we 
have watched them keeping a good look-out before hives for their 
prey. Sparrows do not seem to seek for bees as food until nesting 
time, when a pair of sparrows will, according to a calculation we once 
made, after carefully watched how often the old birds returned for a 
bee, take a go®d-sized swarm during the time they are feeding up 
a. nest of young ones. The sparrow, like the tomtit, carefully but 
very dexterously first extracts the sting before giving the insect 
to its young or eating it itself. Thus the mild season which furnishes 
food for the birds thins the hive. Much food is also consumed 
where bees get out often when they should be clustering at rest. 
Our hives are all in a bee house. During the working season a 
9-inch flap hung on butts stands wide open all round the house, and the 
bees have free entrance to their hives. These flags are now all closed, and 
have been so since October. The bees are in partial darkness ; their exit 
to the open air is only now through slits in the flap, and the sun has to 
be out some time before they feel its influence. Thus they are called out, 
not by sudden bursts of sunshine, but by a general rise of temperature 
with sunshine combined. A hive w r hich is so arranged as to indicate 
on the disc of a Salter’s balance the weight of loss or gain tells us 
that from the 9th of October last until now 9|- lbs. of food have been 
consumed. This hive is constructed exactly similar to all the other 
hives we use, and which have been fully described and illustrated in 
the Journal, only it has double glass slides and front and back. The 
bees are passing the winter in this hive in a perfectly healthy 
condition. The bars are covered with quilt and box of chaff, and the 
glass is perfectly dry and clean, showing that all excessive moisture 
passes off through the top coverings. 
From what we have this winter seen of our bees and their 
condition we are more and more convinced that a good roomy shed, 
such as we have made, is a much better situation for stocks during 
winter than the open. They would be some degrees warmer than in 
the open should very sharp frost set in, and they are at the 6ame time 
less influenced by the kind of muffy-warm weather we have been 
experiencing during the last three months ; they will eat less, and 
there will be less mortality. We do not say that a bee-house is the 
best place for bees everywhere, but in an open, exposed, windy, and 
damp locality we would certainly when possible put them under 
cover.—P. H. P. 
A METHOD TO CURE FOUL BROOD. 
We have then to set ourselves this problem : “ To find a method at 
once rapid and economical, by the aid of which the bees may introduce 
into the nourishment of the larvm a minute quantity of acid in order to 
constantly neutralise the germs of the disease, without, however, in any 
way disturbing the natural order or their daily labours.” 
The experiences of this year seem conclusive, and make me hope for 
a complete success in the future. To obtain this result I have kept the 
water reservoir where my bees go to get their supply charged with water 
mixed with salicylic acid. I dissolved 50 grammes of salicylic acid in 400 
grammes of alcohol, and for each litre of water I added 10 grammes of 
the above solution. This dose is about double that generally recom¬ 
mended to be used in syrup. The consumption of water has been, on the 
average, 3 to 4 litres. On certain days in cold weather it seemed to 
me that the water had a gelatinous appearance, but the bees sucked up 
the moisture from the cloth covering the tank, and all seemed to go well. 
This treatment lasted for seven weeks, but in reality the greatest honey 
flow will prevent the bees going to the reservoir for at least ten days, 
and they return to it only when the flow of honey slackens. 
I had in the spring six colonies more or less affected. Three of these 
I treated by the first-described method. I left the other three for 
experiment’s sake in the condition they were in. 
After seven weeks of this general “ water cure ” I examined the six 
colonies very minutely, every frame of brood being carried into a warm 
room in the order that they held in the hives. 
The other colonies in the apiary were all examined frame by frame, 
and none appeared attacked, the disease having probably been killed 
everywhere immediately it showed itself. 
Egg-laying in spring is always very regular, because the queen finds 
plenty of room free of honey ; one can then easily follow its progress at 
this period. 
In examining the combs of brood of the three colonies to which I had 
given no special treatment, I remarked at first a large quantity of brood 
on the first frame diseased. This comb was the one on which the queen 
commenced her spring laying. The two other combs, to the right and 
left of this one, were also sadly diseased ; the fourth and fifth com¬ 
mence to be much less so : in their centres many bees had come out of 
the cells, but there were still a certain number of cells isolated that 
were diseased. In the circle of brood (sealed) surrounding the portion 
empty of brood, 1 met with very little of the disease, and at last the 
combs, furthest out from the frame on which the queen commenced her 
spring laying, did not appear to contain a single diseased cell. 
The disease, instead of going on increasing, as is usual, had diminished 
progressively. I took away all infected combs from these three hives, 
and commenced feeding them with acidulated syrup. The three other 
colonies transferred to new hives appeared in good condition. At the 
moment of writing, my apiary appears cured just by this retrograde 
action of the disease, and I have every hope that it will continue the 
same until autumn. I will continue the “ water cure ” right up to the 
end of the season, and propose to continue this treatment in the sur¬ 
rounding country until the disease has disappeared from my neighbour¬ 
hood.— Georges de Layens (in American Bee Journal ). 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
"Walter Ford, Pamber, Basingstoke.— Lists of Flower and Vegetable Seeds. 
George White, Carriagehill House, Paisley .—Catalogue of Florists' Flowers 
and Herbaceous Plants. 
James Dickson & Sons, 108,Eastgate Street, Chester .—Catalogue of Flower 
and Vegetable Seeds. 
W. Lovell & Son, Driffidd, Yorkshire .—List of Strawberry Plants. 
Richard Dean, Ranelagh Road, Ealing .—Catalogue of Few and Choice 
Florists' Flowers. 
Leveque et Fils, Ivry-sur-Seine.— List of Boses. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “The Editor ’ 1 
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. 
Back Numbers (S. B.). —We have received your letter, and the subject 
has been attended to. 
Lycaste Skinneri alba (./. II. S.).— The plant you send under this name 
is Lycaste lanipes, which differs greatly from the white variety of L. Skinneri, 
and is much inferior to it both in beauty and value. Small plants of the 
latter have been sold for twenty guineas quite recently, but half a guinea 
will purchase a good example of L. lanipes. L. Skinneri alba has flowers 
exactly like the ordinary red or pink type, the sepals and petals broad and 
thick, but pure white. It is easily recognised. 
Select Camellias (J. II.). —The following are free and useful :—Alba 
plena, white, invaluable ; imbricata, deep crimson ; Queen of Roses, pink ; 
and Cup of Beauty, white and pink. Comte Brazzi Yiolet is white and very 
full. We do not know a blue one with that name. 
Ribbed Glass (C. B.). —We have had no experience with the glass of 
which you have sent a sample, but we do not see why it should not 
answer for a greenhouse or frame in which plants are to be cultivated. If 
we had a quantity we should not hesitate trying it, even if a little shading 
had to be resorted to in very hot weather. 
Gardening Appointment (G. B.). —There are at present no grounds for 
your supposition, and we fear you do not read very attentively. See p. 82 
of our issue of the 11th ult. 
Kidney Beams in Pots (A. M .).—In order to be able to gather Beans 
early in April no time should be lost in sowing seed. \ ou will find Osborn s 
Forcing a desirable variety, as in addition to being quick-growing and 
