January 6, 1881. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
15 
There is honey and honey, from the raw insipid product of the 
orchard and Plane trees to the rich and piquant Heather, and 
from the vile aphis secretion called honeydew to the delicious 
nectar from Clover and Limes. Some of these grades should not 
be marketed at all ; all of them should be labelled as what they 
are and priced accordingly. 
The decade opens hopefully. Never before did the art of bee¬ 
keeping enjoy so great patronage. Our rapidly multiplying 
bee-keepers’ societies are to a notable extent enlisting peers 
and peasants, clericals and laymen, into a common brotherhood. 
Exhibitions of bees and their produce are now the order of the 
day, attracting the multitudes as few shows in rural districts have 
ever done. Men of the highest attainments in science are being 
anew attracted to the study of the wondrous anatomy and habits 
of this tiny insect, while its special function in nature as the 
fertiliser of flowers is being made more and more manifest. It 
yet remains to see our industry enjoying the direct patronage of 
the Government as it does in other lands. The honey bee has 
both an educational and an economic interest that we venture to 
hope cannot long remain unrecognised in the highest quarters. 
Let us hope the near future will witness, under Government 
patronage, the establishment of bee-keeping schoolmasters in 
every parish, that the poor may learn how to obtain honey to 
sweeten their bread. —William Eaitt, Blairgowrie. 
CONGRESS OF GERMAN AND AUSTRIAN BEE¬ 
KEEPERS. 
(Continued from page G06.) 
September 7th was a day of honour for the meeting of the 
German and Austrian bee-keepers. At a quarter past ten in the 
morning Dr. Becker, as chief magistrate and representative of the 
city of Cologne, opened the meeting in the large Victoria Hall, where 
more than four hundred bee-keepers and visitors had assembled, 
among whom were many ladies, the Baroness von Berlepsch, the 
talented widow of the late Baron von Berlepsch, being prominently 
one of the number. In a cordial address Dr. Becker expressed the 
hope that when the fiftieth meeting -was held it would no longer be a 
meeting of German and Austrian bee-keepers only, but an interna¬ 
tional one of bee-keepers of every nationality. He then introduced 
Counsellor Wtiffling to the meeting as the representative of the 
Minister of Instruction, and Counsellor Wiesman as the representa¬ 
tive of the Minister of Agriculture, Domains, and Forests. Mr. 
Wtiffling, in a speech of considerable length, referred to the import¬ 
ance of bee-keeping as a branch of agriculture, as a proof of which 
he stated the Government grants valuable prizes and a sum of money 
in order that these meetings may be held ; and, he continued, their 
excellent Exhibition, which he had viewed with pleasure and sur¬ 
prise, showed that this body of bee-keepers fully deserved the support 
of the Government. In the name of the Government he thanked 
them most heartily for their endeavours, and by command of the 
Emperor he had the honour to hand to their permanent Vice-Presi¬ 
dent, Mr. Andreas Schmid, the decoration of the Order of the Crown. 
Loud applause continued while Mr. Schmid was being invested with 
the order conferred upon him. After Dr. Dzierzon had exhorted the 
meeting to continue in the path of progress, the appointment of 
fifteen gentlemen as Judges of the Exhibition was proceeded with. 
These preliminaries over, the real business of the day commenced ; 
and Mr. Vogel of Lehmannstofel, the faithful joint editor with Mr. 
Schmid of the Bienenzeitung , was called upon to introduce the 
subject of the normal size of hives. Mr. Vogel began by saying that 
Mr. Dathe of Eystrup, a well-known and highly esteemed bee-keeper, 
was to have opened the discussion of this subject, but he unfortu¬ 
nately died suddenly a very short time ago. When hives with move- 
able combs were first introduced they were generally made 10 Rhenish 
inches wide, this being the width adopted by Dr. Dzierzon. Some 
time later this distinguished bee-master made some alteration, reducing 
the width to 9 inches Rhenish measure. Hives are not, however, 
made of uniform size in every district. In 1874 this question of 
uniformity in the width of hives first arose at Halle, and it since had 
been discussed at various meetings. The Central Association for 
Saxony, Thuringia, and adjoining districts recommend a width of 
233 centimetres (9^ inches English) inside, and the same was recom¬ 
mended at the Greifswald meeting. The speaker proposed that the 
meeting should adopt as a normal 23£ centimetres inside measurement 
as the width of hives, and 36 centimetres outside measure as the 
height of frames (18 centimetres the half frame) in order to arrive at 
uniformity for Austria and Germany. As to the depth of hives, this 
of course must be left to each bee-keeper to decide for himself. 
After much discussion a majority of members finally decided in 
favour of the proposition of Captain Wachter of Merseberg, who 
made some observations, which were to the following effect :— 
“We bee-keepers of Germany and Austria, assembled in Cologne to 
celebrate the twenty-fifth anniversary of our meeting, desire that for 
Dzierzon’s or Berlepsch hives, no matter whether Lager hives or 
Standers, as well as for all bee hives the ground plan of which forms 
a rectangle, the following standard should be adopted—viz., width of 
hive 23 h centimetres inside measure, inches English; height of 
half frame 18j) centimetres outside, about English.” Vice-Presi¬ 
dent Sternberg remarked that the importance of this decision could 
not be over-estimated, and he was sure it would largely contribute to 
the advance of rational bee-keeping. 
The second subject of the programme of the day was, “ How have 
bee-keepers to proceed after a bad season in order to bring their 
colonies through the winter without much trouble and expense ?” 
Dr. Dzierzon, by whom the question was asked, reminded his 
hearers that in order to answer it satisfactorily every bee-keeper 
should first ask himself, How ought I really to have acted last year ? 
It was advisable, he said, not to winter any colony which had not 
collected sufficient food, especially after such a bad season as we 
had had last year. It was the bee-master’s duty to check the increase 
of his colonies early, and to unite only those colonies which had a 
reasonable prospect of surviving the winter. He recommended bee¬ 
keepers to make their colonies strong in population ; to preserve only 
the most fertile queens ; to deprive the colonies of their queen at the 
right time, in order that the bees may collect more honey ; to reduce 
the number of hives ; to unite colonies, and to keep till the following 
year any old comb which contains pollen. Mr. Lehzen was of a dif¬ 
ferent opinion. He pronounced against the reduction of hives, and 
recommended the filling of honey casks in good seasons. As you are 
aware, he said, in seven years we have on an average two good honey 
harvests ; three we may call middling good, two bad. Advantage 
should be taken of the good seasons to obtain as much honey as 
possible. According to Pfarrer Deichert it was not only a question 
of the quantity of honej r collected, but also of its quality, of the 
arrangement of the combs, and the construction of the hive. He 
did not give the bees any honey which had become granulated, 
as it was injurious to them in winter. Honey gathered from the 
Rape blossom had a tendency to crystallise, and should be ex¬ 
tracted by means of the slinger. He is of opinion, however, that 
sugarcandy, which is not expensive, cannot be sufficiently recom¬ 
mended for feeding bees in bad seasons. Pfarrer Deichert also 
recommends the piercing of the combs to enable the bees to move 
more easily from one comb to another, and the filling-up of empty 
spaces in the hives with moss, sawdust, &c., when the cold in winter 
is severe. Mr. Stursburg wished differences of climate to be taken 
into consideration, and stated that he had obtained most satisfactory 
results last winter from feeding his bees on the refuse from sugar- 
candy, an article still less expensive. Mr. Klausmeyer reduces his 
colonies to a moderate extent; he uses sugarcandy for feeding when 
the season is bad, and shuts off the queen from the comb, leaving 
her only a couple of long frames for breeding. Mr. A. Schlbsser 
agrees with Dr. Dzierzon, and deprecates late and useless feeding. 
Gunther is in favour of shutting off the queen from the entrance 
to the hive about the middle of June. In such cases he leaves 
her four to six half frames. Mr. Weygandt strengthens his small 
colonies by inserting some brood comb. The next question discussed 
was, “ What are the essentials to be observed in order to winter 
colonies of German, Italian, and Carniolian bees well ? ” The word 
“June” in the twenty-sixth line from the bottom of my article on 
page 606 last week ought to have been printed “ jars.”— Alfred 
Neighbour. (To be continued.) 
p r u 
IPWWBR 
CORRESPONDENTS. 
hwiimmihiwr 
*** 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. Vie 
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 Poultry and Bee subjects, and 
should never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended 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. 
Books (If. Martin, St. Ilonori).— If you write to Messrs. Asher & Co., book¬ 
sellers, Bedford Street, London, they will send you what you require, except 
perhaps Steudel’s “ Nomenclator Botanicus,” which we think can only be 
obtained secondhand. The price of the “Treasury of Botany” (Longmans) is 
12s. 6 d .; Paxton’s “ Botanical Dictionary ” (Bradbury), 25s. ; and Johnson’s 
“ Cottage Gardener’s Dictionary” (Bell), 6s. 6 d. (IK. 0. F., Rat/deale ). — Wedo 
not know of any works of the kind you appear to desire, and we do not think 
there are any published. 
Grapes in Peach House {Leeds). —If the Peach trellis does not shade 
the back wall Black Hamburgh Grapes would ripen on the aspect yon name. 
The Vines, considering their permanent value, would be best planted out and 
cropped lightly the first year. If you crop them very heavily the first season 
they will be of little use afterwards, whether they are retained in pots or planted 
in the border; but if lightly or moderately cropped they will improve in value 
yearly. They will succeed in ordinarily fertile garden soil with some wood 
ashes and a few bones added, and the surface mulched with good manure. They 
