March 27, 1884, ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
258 
in pots. Young plants now in cold frames and well established in 3-ineh 
pots should be transferred into 6-inch pots, using a compost of good loam, 
a seventh of decayed manure, and a little sand. Keep the frame close 
for about a fortnight after potting until they are rooting freely, when air 
may be admitted liberally. No attempt should be made to force them, 
or the growth will be weak and the trusses of flowers poor, but if grown 
under cool conditions and liberally treated they will be strong and 
produce very large trusses. In the conservatory or greenhouse when in 
flower they look noble, and they will come into flower some weeks before 
those in the beds and borders outside. 
Tree Carnations. —Where choice sweet flowers are appreciated during 
the winter these should be grown, and in order to achieve the greatest 
success the plants must be propagated annually and grown on specially 
for the purpose. Dwarf sturdy cuttings will now be plentiful, and if 
taken off with a sharp knife just where they have issued from the old 
stem, they are sure under careful treatment to strike root with certainty. 
If these shoots are long, take off the top about 3 inches in length, which 
will do equally well. They should be inserted in pots, pans, or boxes, 
and after a good watering place bellglasses or handlights over them. 
After insertion they should be placed in a temperature of about 60°, 
where they will have slight bottom heat, and if well shaded from bright 
sun the majority will root. When in this condition air must be admitted 
gradually at first, until the covering they have received while rooting 
may be entirely dispensed with. As soon as they are rooted they should 
be gradually brought into a temperature, say 10° lower, by the time they 
are ready for placing in 3-inch pots, which should be done as soon as 
they are sufficiently rooted. Employ a compost of good loam, leaf mould, 
a little manure, and a liberal dash of coarse sand. 
Carnation Souvenir de la Malmaison. —Plants that were raised by 
layering last autumn and have been in 3-inch pots during the winter in 
cold frames should now be placed in 6-inch pots. After potting return them 
to the frame, which should be kept close for about a fortnight, until they 
are rooting freely into the new compost. Afterwards ventilate liberally 
to maintain a dwarf sturdy growth. After the 6-inch pots are full of 
roots place them in others 2 inches larger and give the strongest plants 
greenhouse treatment, and they will be in good condition for the con¬ 
servatory by the middle of June. By judicious treatment in pushing 
forward these plants or retarding them, a supply of their large flowers 
may be maintained until they can be gathered outside. Those for next 
winter and spring flowering will need the same treatment until the early 
part of June, when they may be placed in 10-inch pots and stood 
outside. For winter and spring flowering select those that are dwarf 
and most likely to produce shoots close from the base, as upon these the 
winter and spring flowers will be borne. The compost advised above 
may be used, and they should be carefully and judiciously watered until 
their pots are full of roots. 
Border Carnations. —These are very useful for conservatory decoration, 
and a few of the strongest plants in small pots that have been wintered 
in frames should be placed into 5-inch and 6-inch pots. The beautiful 
white W. P. Milner, and the old crimson Clove are invaluable for this 
purpose, and will do well under cool frame treatment, coming into flower 
long before those in the borders outside. Not only are the flowers useful 
when cut, but at the season of the year when they bloom they are 
invaluable for association with other flowering plants. 
Pinhs. —Not to mention the use and beauty of these early in the 
season for forcing, they are unsurpassed for beauty when brought 
forward gradually under cool frame treatment, or in an airy green¬ 
house close to the glass. In 5-inch and 6-inch pots the old common 
White ; Ascot, dark ; and Mrs. Sinkins are, when well grown, scarcely 
equalled by any other dwarf flowering plants grown for decoration. 
The last is remarkably dwarf and floriferous, not being more than 
7 or 9 inches in height when the flowers are expanded, which are as 
large as a Carnation and as sweet as a Clove. No garden should be 
without this variety, and where sweet white flowers are in demand in 
spring it should be grown in large numbers and forced in quantity. It 
is not quite so early-flowering as the old common garden variety. 
ABOUT LIGURIAN BEES. 
As facts are far better than theories, and as your Journal is 
not prejudiced solely in favour of bar-frame bives and Ligurian 
bees, I write to give my testimony to support “W. B. C.,” to 
express my sincere satisfaction at the point being so plainly 
stated, and to add my experiences. 
The bad years about 1878 induced me to try the much-vaunted 
Ligurians, and, purchasing three queens from the best dealer, I 
had the satisfaction of introducing them, of watching the young 
bees appear, of handling them easily, and of noticing their 
apparent activity. This activity I soon discovered to be rest¬ 
lessness, and to be the cause of the extra feeding required for 
them compared with blacks. My experiences, however, were 
short owing to foul brood appearing in two out of the three 
hives. Immediately destroying these, and guarding all other 
hives with syrup and salicylic acid, stopped further loss from 
that dreadful disease, though I lost my remaining Ligurian 
stock in the winter. It appeared remarkable to me then that 
foul brood commenced in Ligurian hives, attacked two of them, 
never affected my remaining blacks, and never appeared in my 
apiary before I introduced Ligurians. 
Thus ended my first venture ; but the repeated pmffing of 
Ligurians by various bee authorities, and their vaunted praise 
in Mr. Cowan’s excellent book, induced me to again try them. 
My experience thoroughly bears out that of others. My surplus 
from Ligurians is much smaller than from my ordinary English 
black bee, and my feeding to them is much more profuse. I ask 
your readers who are keepers of blacks and Ligurians, Which 
bees take honey down from supers first ? and I confidently say 
that they will reply and bear out my experience, that the 
Ligurians are the first in autumn in spite of their nominal 
superiority in respect of second crop red Clover to take down 
their stores. 
The introduction of Syrians, Cyprians, &c., negatively shows 
a want of satisfaction with the Ligurians, and I wish that our 
excellent British paper as England’s authority on bees would 
approach this subject with less bias, and at the same time admit 
more fully the certain good points of skeps and Stewartons. 
To assist bee-keeping as a general pursuit, and especially for the 
cottagers, it is an error to be too closely attached to bar-frame 
hives and Ligurian bees. I have long wished for this exposure 
of Ligurians, and especially when I have been judging at local 
shows and seen the novice prizing his Ligurians, and found him 
deaf to any idea of mine that the change would not be worth the 
cost. Worth the cost! I would give more for a black queen 
than for a Ligurian queen: I would have one in my apiary, I 
would not have the other. —The Welsh Bee-keeper. 
While I can fully endorse most of what “ W. B. C.” has to say 
against these bees, I must demur against his classing all foreign bees 
with them, by doing which he falls into the same error he com¬ 
mences in charging the late Mr. Pettigrew with, for condemning 
these bees before he had tried them, for, according to his own showing, 
he has tried no foreign bees except the Ligurian. I have also tried 
these bees, and have even a worse report against them than 
“ W. B. C. ; ” and if anyone left me a legacy of fifty stocks the first 
operation I should perform would be to kill all the queens right 
off. I would not even sell them, because I should feel to be 
taking good money for what I consider a worthless thing. 
I have also tried another foreign bee—the Syrian, which seems to 
realise all my wishes, and I have nothing but praise for it : but it; lias 
certain peculiarities one must understand, its general characteristics 
being the very opposite to blacks. They must on no account be 
smoked, they never rob, will never gorge themselves, will breed twice 
the number of bees, and always be the first to work in a morning. 
All breeders and hybridisers know that by uniting two extremes the 
fruit is mostly a pleasing one, and a Syrian queen mated with a black 
drone is no exception. I can cite a case where £20 profit has been 
made in one season in this country from one stock ; another where 
the increase v T as £7, and each gathered sufficient to winter on, while 
twenty black stocks failed to swarm and had to be fed for winter. 
Imported queens of this race cost 22s. each, and, having had a dozen 
of them, I would cheerfully pay as many pounds if I could not get 
them for less.— Hallamshibe. 
AT WHAT AGE DO BEES GATHER HONEY? 
According to the experiments of Mr. G. M. Doolittle a young bee does 
not gather honey until it is sixteen days old. I had come to the conclusion, 
many years ago, that in about thirty days from the laying of the egg a 
young bee would be gathering honey, if there was a good yield. 
As I received some very fine yellow Italian queens from a breeder in 
Maryland a few days after reading Mr. Doolittle’s article, I thought I 
would make some similar experiments, to see what the results would be 
with me. Consequently I introduced a fine yellow queen into a colony 
of native bees. In about forty-eight hours afterwards the queen began 
to lay vigorously, and in twenty-one days thereafter the little ' 1 yellow 
boys ” were hatching out of the cells in great numbers. In five days 
more some of these young yellow bees brought little pellets of pollen ; 
and when seven days old, I found by crushing them as they dropped 
upon the alighting board, that quite a proportion of them had their sacs 
filled with honey. When nine days old they were gathering honey as 
freely as any in the hive, and came as well laden as the older bees. 
There was no possibility of a mistake in the matter, for before the 
hatching of brood from the new Italian queen not a yellow bee could be 
found in the hive. In fact, most of my bees are of the common kind, 
and the colony experimented with was especially free from any yellow- 
banded or hybrid bees. 
This experiment was made during an abundant honey yield from 
bass wood. In such a case undoubedly bees would work much younger 
than when the honey flow was less. In our spring management this ques¬ 
tion becomes of some importance, as we would like to know about when 
