412 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ May 22, 1834 
•well and the plants potted firmly in good loam, leaf mould about one- 
tlilrd, and a seventh of cow manure, and a liberal dash of sand. Grow 
the plants in a cold bouse or frame, for these plants, like Chrysanthe¬ 
mums, will not bear heat. 
,c-)T ^ 
—r~.~ > ^-y i . , . i . , . ■. , . r-■ - i • i » I - 'i 
o* 
ill 
m BEE-KEEPER. 
e) m 
NOTES ON BEES. 
VICIOUS BEES. 
When bees are accustomed to people and domesticated animals near 
the apiary they seldom offer an attack unless through some provocation, 
which they are sure to resent. Incautious manipulation, turning the soil, 
and piffling weeds or vegetables ; certain odours, such as musk and other 
scents ; vinegar and smoke, and allowing bees to have access to honeycomb 
or robbing other hives, are a few of the many things that irritate them, 
all of which should be guarded against. One bee irritated and using its 
sting may set the whole apiary in a frantic and vicious state, which may 
last for weeks ere they be calmed down. It is possible that bees possess 
a sense that we are ignorant of. One thing is certain, when people of a 
nervous temperament manipulate bees there is something that excites 
them. We can avoid irritating bees in many ways, such as by leaving the 
apiary for a time when they are inclined to sting or disturbing them as 
mentioned above; but there are times when all danger has to he faced, 
and caution with firmness is necessary, and veils if stings are dreaded. 
When manipulating I seldom either use a veil or smoke, carbolic acid 
being so much superior to the latter that it enables me to manipulate with 
safety, leaving the bees in a passive state after. The hive also is the 
better able to resist foul brood, while moths do not harbour where it has 
been used, neither is the honey tainted nor the larva) affected by its use, 
as is the case when smoke is used. Carbolic acid is useful to prevent 
robbers attacking another hive. The attacking hive is well smeared at the 
entrance; this diverts the bees from making further inroads on its 
weaker neighbours. When commencing to manipulate, if the bees are 
vicious or suspected to be so, I smear the alighting board -with some 
acid, then uncover the hive. I then smear the tops of the frames with 
the acid, and having a wing or feather also saturated so that I may dis¬ 
lodge the bees from any part by its use, placing it near the bees, causing 
them to retreat to or from any part I may choose. When this is done the 
bees remain quiet, and do not crowd over the frames nor attempt to sting 
as they do when smoke is used. 
My hives have an advantage over other frame hives which renders 
them much more easily manipulated, while the hive is not exposed 
to draught and robbers, nor is the operator so liable to be stung. 
This advantage consists in having the tops of the frames fitted 
with lateral slides, so that there is no need to expose more combs than 
the one operated upon. These slides have the same value as in the 
Stewarton. By their use the hive can be insensibly ventilated. Draught 
is entirely obviated through brood nest when supers are on, and dispenses 
with excluder zinc, while they insure at all times supers free from brood. 
When using carbolic acid it is necessary to be very cautious, because if it 
touches the bees it kills them. As carbolic acid is of great service in the 
apiary in many ways a supply should always be kept on hand. Creosote 
has been long known for the same purpose, but the usefulness of carbolic 
acid in the apiary was first made known in these pages by that dis¬ 
tinguished apiarian “ R. S.,” whose communications were much admired 
long ago by all interested, , 
REMEDIES FOR STINGS. 
There are many applications and nostrums recommended for stiDgs 
none of them being effectual as a cure, for the very simple reason that 
the poison has impregnated the system before the alkali can be applied 
and reach the acid to neutralise it. There is a lotion sold as a cure for 
stings, but unfortunately it is alum and water only, with a little scent 
added. Alum never will neutralise the poison of the sting of the bee. 
Some people are so little affected by stings that when they apply any¬ 
thing they imagine it to be a cure, then publish the same, thereby mis¬ 
leading others. I have had some very serious cases of stinging. The 
best remedy I ever found was to apply heat by steam or water to the 
patient to cause a free perspiration, and to give a little sal volatile ; but 
this latter ought to be prescribed by the medical man. Not a moment 
should be lost to bring on a free perspiration, and every means resorted 
to that will accomplish that end. 
EXHAUSTING QUEENS. 
This very unfavourable weather, which has lasted since the beginning 
of April, has not only retarded the advance of hives but exhausts the 
queen, and will materially affect the prosperity of the hive. It is a fact 
that when once a queen is in condition for laying she deposits her eggs 
in the same ratio in bad weather as she would do in fair weather ; but 
while they would be hatched and nursed in the latter case, they would 
undoubtedly be destroyed in the former ; thus not only is the queen 
impaired, but the hive never attains the strength it would otherwise do. 
When hives are well supplied in the autumn with honey and pollen 
stores there is less fear of them suffering through the above, as they 
advance steadily with the season, but it is very different with those 
stimulated to unseasonable activity. With such hives, where there is so 
much waste of eggs, the queens soon become (comparatively speaking) old, 
and should not be depended on for more than one season. 
BEES NEAR-SIGHTED. 
Some people are of the opinion that bees are not near-sighted— i.e. 
cannot discern an object near them. I cannot endorse that statement, as 
I have repeatedly observed when bees were feeding under a glass cover 
they started when an object was made to pass over or close to them.— 
A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
SYRIAN BEES v. BLACKS. 
In reference to the letter of “ K. B. K.” on page 293 it seem9 
necessary to compare a few sentences, so that each reader may judge for 
himself as to whether some passages have not been read in the opposite to 
their natural meaning. Your correspondent says, on page 373, that I 
stated “ £20 of profit had been obtained in one year from one stock of 
Syrians, while blacks did not gather enough to winter on.” To this he 
says he remarked that the £20 quoted “could not be the one he knew of, 
as that was made in the year 1881, when all stocks did well.” Now, 
compare what I did say on page 253. “ I can cite a case where £20 
profit has been made in one season in this country from one stock 
(hybrids) ; another where the increase was seven, and each gathered 
sufficient to winter on, while twenty black stocks failed to swann and 
had to be fed for winter.” 
Next “ K. B. K.” on page 293, after asking for particulars of 
the £20 profit, says, “ I have some recollections of a statement of the 
sort in print, but as I believe the bulk of the profit was derived from the 
sale of swarms or queens, and was, if I remember rightly, in 1881, when 
all stocks—black or yellow—gathered enough to winter upon.” He 
presumes I refer to some other colony. This, however, is nothing to 
compare with his misleading quotation from the “ British Bee Journal ” on 
page 63, vol. ix. (not page 64, as he says) about small nucle ; , swarms, and 
casts producing treble their value in honey, for in the concluding part of 
that article these words occur, “ Notwithstanding the glorious weather 
here (Southall, Middlesex) in Scotland and Ireland there is not the same 
ground for satisfaction, reports of rain in Ireland almost daily and cold¬ 
ness being rife.” This sentence is partly on pages 63 and 64, and concludes 
in fifty more words, so he must have seen and read it, and explains his 
giving 64 as the page. 
Again, it will be noted, I did not say or imply that blacks standing in 
the neighbourhood of the stock which made £20 profit failed to swarm or 
secure stores for winter, but in connection with the one which increased 
seven, which was at Ulverston in North Lancashire, on the north of 
Morecombe Bay, between Scotland and Ireland. There is no excuse for 
him getting wrong, as I gave on page 353, in answer to “ A. Tyke,” the 
place where part of the account could be found, which is the very number 
that the £20 profit is published in, and in which the writer says, “ The 
Syrian queen I had from you threw off five swarms in June, and the fir^t 
swarm threw a virgin on the 18th of July, and a second on the 30ih. . . . 
We had rain almost every day in June, July, and first three weeks in 
August. . . It certainly has been the worst year for honey on record. . . 
I have boiled eighteen stones of sugar this autumn to keep them alive 
over the winter. I had a few sections filled in May, otherwise there would 
have been none.” In face of this and the well-known fact that in the 
north of England, Scotland, and Ireland 1881 was one of the worst honey 
years known, he tries to make it out to be the best, and that all stocks, 
black or yellow, strong or weak, did well throughout the United 
Kingdom just because they happened to do so in the south, and puts this 
forth to show the value of what I write, and concludes with the remark 
that “ comment is needless.” 
If I have written anything to offend Mr. Doolittle I am prepared to 
answer him. I understand somewhat the subjects I write on, and take 
means to keep myself well informed, which was the reason I had a file of 
the “American Bee Journal” to refer to and verify “ K. B. K.’s” 
quotations, which perhaps he did not expect. The word “ Jarna ” on 
page 352 should have been printed “ Java.”— Hallamshire. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Edmund Phillip Dixon, 57, Queen Street, Hull.— Catalogue of New and 
Choice Plants. 
W. & J. Birkenhead, Fern Nursery, Sale, near Manchester .—Catalogue of 
Ferns ( illustrated ). 
%* 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 
