January 27, 1881 . ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 77 
some of your readers that it was reported the first Crystal Palace 
show of bees and honey had doomed the poor straw hive to ex¬ 
tinction. About the same time the Stewarton hive was strongly 
recommended and ably advocated. If I remember rightly we 
were told that both the shape and materials of this hive helped to 
make the yield of it 200 or 300 per cent, more than other hives. 
Mr. Lowe of Edinburgh and myself thought differently. The 
virtues of the Ligurian bees were exceedingly lauded too. I 
thought then, and still think, that a fair trial of strength, or a 
Derby day in the apiarian world, would be of advantage to bee¬ 
keepers both old and young all over the country. Well, I 
offered to set down five straw hives of common bees within one 
hundred miles of Manchester against five hives of any other kind 
filled with any kind of bees—common, Ligurian, or half-bred. 
This challenge remained open for acceptance four or five years, 
and last time it was repeated the readers of this Journal were 
told that if not accepted in six months it would be withdrawn 
never to be repeated, owing to my advanced age and feeble health. 
No one accepted this challenge. Now Mr. Mann offers to meet 
me. The same reason that made me withdraw my offer prevents 
me from entertaining the idea of accepting Mr. Mann’s proposal 
whatever it is, and will prevent me from engaging personally in 
exciting contests. But there may be younger men who may be 
willing to meet our Perthshire friend on a fair field, and I now 
ask him to inform us on what conditions would he like a contest 
to take place 1 
The question for decision, as I understand it, is, Which hive is 
best for honey and profit ? not Which bee-master is the best man ? 
nor Which locality is best for bees ? When Mr. Bennie saw Mr. 
Mann’s challenge he said, “ It is easy for Ayrshire and Perthshire 
bee-keepers to compete with Carluke folk. You are aware we 
have a cold clay soil, the worst for Clover I have ever seen. I 
would be willing to try any of them on the same pasturage.” 
Mr. Rennie, who lived some years in Perthshire and Aberdeen¬ 
shire, and kept bees there, once told me that the land there is 
much richer and warmer than it is about Carluke, and that the 
Clover there yields honey in greater quantities. The gatherings 
of his bees on the Clover in Perth and Aberdeenshire astonished 
him. No satisfactory or deciding contest can take place between 
hives standing far apart or in different localities. Last summer 
I had nine hives at Stretford and nine at Chorlton, two villages in 
Lancashire about a mile apart. At Chorlton the bees did much 
better than those at Stretford. Rich warm soils are more pro¬ 
ductive of honey than poor ones, not only where Clover grows, 
but where Heather and other plants grow. The Carluke bee¬ 
keepers have Heather in their own parish on heavy wet land, 
about three or four miles from the village ; but for the last twenty 
years many of the hives have been taken to the Carnwath and Tinto 
Moors, fifteen and twenty miles distant, on which bees gather 
honey faster. These facts are now mentioned in order to con¬ 
vince all persons that a fair trial of strength can take place only 
between hives standing beside each other. Believing that Mr. 
Mann and Mr. Rennie are both very clever and far advanced in 
the art and practice of successful and profitable bee-keeping, I 
should be much pleased if an arrangement could be made between 
them for a contest, which in a good season and well reported 
would demonstrate what skill in bee-keeping can do for working 
men, and what bees might be worth to the community. Last 
year some working men in Scotland made from £50 to £80 each 
from their bees by attention to them after their regular hours of 
work. I have been gently reproached for giving encouragements 
to a class higher than working men to keep bees, but this cannot 
be avoided. Scotchmen need no more stimulus in this direction, 
and they needed not the stimulus of last year’s great success. 
When will the working men of England resemble those of Scot¬ 
land in the matter of bee-keeping ? Stimulus and example here 
are necessary, and will be necessary for years to come ; and how 
small is the desire for information on the subject ! Exhibitions 
are doing something to awaken and keep alive a desire for know¬ 
ledge of bee-keeping in some places. Reported instances of 
success do more, and I believe that well-conducted competitions 
would do more still. In competitions honestly and fairly con¬ 
ducted there is nothing to fear, for those who lose the day gain 
something better than victory—viz., knowledge by experience ; 
they find out that they are wrong. We cannot learn much, if 
anything, from those who think as we think. 
The difficulties of arranging and carrying out a trial of strength 
between hives of bees is great, and if the owners of the hives live 
some distance apart the necessary expense of a trial would be 
considerable. Working men have no money to spend in pursuit 
of the mere honours of victory. We live in the hope that the 
value of bees to the community will be better understood ; that 
our associations for the advancement of apiculture will obtain 
greater and more general support, so that larger prizes will be 
offered at public compititions and exhibitions ; and that handsome 
rewards will be offered for great results in bee-keeping. 
May I be allowed to suggest that an attempt be now made to 
raise by subscription a sum of £30 or £40 to be offered as a 
premier prize for the best results in 1881 from a hive of any 
kind managed on any principle ? If any respectable committee 
or existing association will undertake to carry out this idea I will 
commence the subscription by promising £2. If two premier 
prizes of £40 each could be raised, one for English and the other 
for Scottish bee-keepers, a very great step would be taken to 
advance apiculture in Great Britain.—A. Pettigrew. 
THE MANAGEMENT OF HIVE ENTRANCES 
DURING SNOW. 
The almost arctic weather with which we have been so very 
suddenly visited, just as many were discoursing upon the fulfil¬ 
ment of the predictions of a mild winter, render opportune the 
illustration and explanation of a little device which I have proved 
to be as effective as it is simple. Every bee-keeper who has the 
experience of a winter or two knows that a sudden outburst of 
sunshine when snow covers the ground is likely to occasion much 
loss to his bees and distress to himself unless some precautions 
have been taken to prevent it. It is the nature of bees to revel 
in the beams of the king of day, whose advent is to them always 
welcome, as their call to the pleasures of honest labour. We can 
understand then how after an enforced confinement because of 
cold and gloom without, extending perhaps to many days, his 
bright beams peeping in at the hive door occasion so much excite¬ 
ment that prudence is forgotten, and that the impatient throng, 
lured abroad by the chilly splendour, soon dot the snow, from 
which the greater number never rise. 
I can imagine nothing more distressing to a real lover of his 
bees than to stand before his stocks and find that thus the mis¬ 
judging insects are falling around him in thousands. Many years 
ago this was once my experience. To stop the hive doors at the 
moment seemed a remedy worse than the disease, as this would 
prevent the ingress of those on the wing, and I then could only 
hope that the sunshine, of which before I never had too much, 
would soon be cut off by some bank of cloud. 
Two precautions have hitherto been recommended to prevent 
this evil. First, to close the hive door ; second, to shade the 
front of the hive. From the first of these I entirely dissent, 
believing that bees never need to be, and never should be, confined 
to their hives except when on a journey. Quietude is one great 
essential of successful wintering and bees no sooner discover that 
they are prisoners than a most exhausting and distressed excite¬ 
ment takes possession of them. If bees with open door be placed 
in perfect darkness in a room they will not leave their hive, and 
rest will reign within ; but if the hive door be closed uproar is the 
result, and muscle and nerve, honey and pollen, are all together 
going to rapid destruction at once. An instance came under 
my notice of a bee-keeper attempting to winter some imprisoned 
stocks in a dark cellar. The buzz caused him to desist very 
early in the spring, and every bee died soon after removal to its 
outdoor stand. The reason is apparent—useless battering against 
the prison walls had beaten the life energy out of the stocks, and 
the chill of an English spring gained an easy victory, simply 
having to complete the work of exhaustion, which the misjudged 
care of the bee-keeper (?) had commenced. If bees are so kept 
to their cluster by cold that they cannot attempt to leave, and 
so do not learn their imprisonment, the confinement is clearly 
useless ; but if they may attempt to make an excursion abroad 
it is as clearly mischievous—so mischievous, indeed, as to be 
not infrequently the proximate, and sometimes the immediate, 
cause of death to the entire colony. That it may be the proxi¬ 
mate cause I have already pointed out, while if dead bees gather 
in the stock they will be brought to the “ perforated zinc door, 
and as they accumulate the stoppage of all ingress of the essential 
oxygen will enable the cold to do its work. 
The second recommendation—the shading of the hive door, is 
effective, but it demands time and attention, and has. the dis¬ 
advantage of somewhat altering the appearance of the hive front, 
and so unhappily hindering the return of the bees that have 
ventured upon a cleansing flight. To save time and conquer the 
little disadvantages named I have introduced a modification into 
my <( anti-robbing porch,” of which I wrote in the issue of October 
11th last, and the entrance as it now stands I find so extremely 
useful that I would urge the adoption of it with all earnestness 
consistent with modesty. 
The value of this entrance in preventing robbing need not again 
