178 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ March s, mi. 
Early Horn varieties of Carrots should be sown, and the crops will 
not be injured by the Radishes. 
HE BEE-KEEPER. I 
. i. i. i ■ i. i. ,L i. i. ,. i. i . i. i n-= 
• i t i - v- 
THE STEWARTON HIVE. 
Though much has been written about the Stewarton hive, and 
though it has for many years been strongly recommended, very 
few bee-keepers have seen it, and fewer still understand the 
principle of the hive or its mode of management. About forty or 
fifty years ago Mr. Nutt introduced and recommended the col¬ 
lateral box hive. It did not answer to his representation and 
speedily fell into disuse. The Stewarton hive is not likely to 
follow a similar course, for those who use it and understand its 
management find it succeed, and some think that it is unequalled. 
This is true in one sense certainly—viz., that it is unlike all other 
hives in construction and mode of working. It is unlike the bar- 
frame hive, as no alterations or improvements are sought or 
required, whereas the bar-frame hive is only advancing to per¬ 
fection. Last year Mr. Anderson of Dairy reported in thi3 
Journal that a Stewarton hive and its swarms rose in weight to a 
gross total of 481 fibs. Such success is enough to commend the 
hive to the consideration of apiarians of every class. 
It is difficult to give a comprehensive and adequate description 
of the Stewarton hive. It is made of wood, in six separate parts, 
14 inches wide, and octagonal in shape. The three bottom boxes 
when placed on one another are called breeding boxes, and are 
each 6 inches deep. The second three boxes, 4 inches deep, are 
honeycomb boxes or supers. All the six boxes constitute one 
hive, and when they are all in use a Stewarton hive is 30 inches 
deep or high, and is in this state first-class for work. Every 
honey season for the last fifteen years we have had records of the 
results of the Stewarton hive, and they have been most satis¬ 
factory and encouraging. 
All the boxes, both breeding and honey boxes, have bars across 
their tops, and are without lids or crowns. This is their great 
peculiarity. When two or more boxes are placed together slides 
running in grooves are pushed between the bars of the topmost 
box, and these with the bars make the crown of the hive. If the 
hive is eked from below the slides remain in the topmost box, 
but if eked at the top by giving it one or more honey boxes the 
slides are withdrawn from the breeding box and run in between 
the bars of the top honey box : the slides of course must always be 
used in the topmost box. Let the reader observe that when all 
the six parts of the hive are buttoned together we have a house 
or hive six storeys high without separations or complications— 
without floors and partition walls. The bars of the boxes are thin 
and hardly form a separation between the boxes ; the bees can 
travel from the bottom to the top throughout the whole breadth 
of the hive as readily as if there were no bars. The utmost 
freedom for work is given in a Stewarton. The Nutt hive had 
what the Scotch people call a “ butt and a ben,” and the bar- 
frame hive has in supering a kitchen and an attic ; but the Stew¬ 
arton has not a butt and a ben, neither has it a room below and a 
room above with a staircase and doorway between. A Stewarton 
hive is really a great workhouse and storehouse united without 
complication or separation. This arrangement is admirable, and 
facilitates indoor labour. 
Some advocates of the Stewarton hive hold that one of its great 
advantages consists in its power of preventing free access from 
breeding boxes to honey boxes, especially of the queen. Slides 
employed in the centre of the hive, between breeding boxes and 
honey boxes, it is said prevent the queen going into the supers to 
lay. If one or two slides are kept out, at the outside combs, we are 
told that the bees find their way to the supers with honey, but the 
queen does not with her eggs. This statement has no weight with 
me. If the queen wishes to go to the super she would take the 
roundabout way as well as the bees ; and if the bees resolve to set 
eggs in the honey boxes of Stewarton hives they would pare down 
the honeycombs to the proper thickness of brood comb, and take 
eggs from the bottom boxes, carry them aloft, and set them there, 
the working bees being the prime actors in this matter. The bees 
of a Stewarton hive are wintered in two breeding boxes. As soon 
as these are filled with bees in spring a third breeding box is given 
below, and when the third box is full supering commences by using 
the honey boxes above. In autumn the honey is taken and the 
bees confined to two of the three breeding boxes. This hive is 
meant to be managed on the non-swarming principle. In every 
good season for storing honey beautiful octagonal supers taken from 
Stewarton hives are exposed for sale in the shops of Glasgow. 
This hive can be managed on the swarming system of manage¬ 
ment as well as any other hive, and probably as experience is 
gained the swarming system will be most followed where Heather 
is available. The readers of this Journal would notice that the 
grand result of a total of 481 Ib3. from a Stewarton hive was 
reached through the swarming system of management. Though 
I do not use the Stewarton hive, and though I know well that 
straw is a better material for hives than wood, especially in 
winter, I like to speak well of this hive, which has done, and is 
likely to do, excellent work ; and I shall be pleased if the Stewarton 
hive becomes more extensively known.— A. Pettigrew. 
CALENDAR OF OPERATIONS IN THE APIARY. 
MARCH. 
In our fitful climate temperature and other conditions vary so 
much that the advice given in books, though wise and right, perhaps, 
for the average, may be wide of suiting the particular season through 
which we are passing. I purpose, therefore, giving monthly some 
hints with the object of guiding the inexperienced, and preventing 
the advanced from overlooking now and again matters, which if not 
done to time can often not be done at all to any purpose. We have 
passed through a very cold period, during which the bees have been 
long confined to their hives, and so soon as the wind shifts and the 
thermometer rises to about 50®, permitting our bees to fly freely, we 
should overhaul our stocks to ascertain their condition, and supply 
whatever may be found to be essential. 
Floorboards of skeps and frame hives both should be cleared of 
wax debris thrown down during the uncapping of honey cells (to 
secure their contents for food) during the winter, as this debris holds 
moisture, and would if unremoved give hereafter a secure nidus to 
the wax moth. Dead bees must also be cleared out, but if these be 
found in any considerable number we must suppose that our hives or 
our methods are at fault. Beyond here and there a stray bee no dead 
are found in my stocks, except in one case where I removed about 
one-third of a pint on Saturday, February 26th, this arising as I feel 
sure from the driving snowstorm of January 18th, as the mouth of 
the hive had only the ordinary slip door and faced direct east. 
Flour cake* will now be useful if given in the feed hole of skeps 
or under the quilt of frame hives. Those who possess stocks in 
skeps without an opening above suffer a disadvantage which may be 
overcome thus :—Take a piece of flat thin board about 6 inches 
square, and cut a round hole in its centre inch in diameter, and 
put over this a square of perforated zinc with fine holes. Add a hole 
at each corner for a screw, of which four long ones will be required. 
Arm yourself now with a roll of brown paper about 1 inch in diameter 
and set this smouldering. A roll of corduroy will be even better. 
Now proceed to cut with a sharp knife the necessary hole in the skep, 
keep your bees in check with the smoke, and proceed quietly, when 
you need fear nothing ; cut your hole cleanly, remove all ragged 
pieces, and now put a ring of clay previously made ready round the 
hole. Over this press your board and turn your screws into the 
straw. You will thus get a convenient little stage for a super and 
all facilities for feeding. If you have no clay use dough, but be 
careful to prevent all leak of hot air between the board and the skep 
itself, as such would reduce the prosperity of the stock considerably. 
An inverted bottle with or without muslin over its neck can now be 
used ; but when the bottle is not on, cover the zinc with some thick 
pad for a reason which the necessity for the clay explains. In giving 
liquid food it is desirable (unless the very slow method is followed) 
to put the bottle on at night and remove it in the morning. Stocks 
in frame hives may at this time be most advantageously fed with 
combs of sealed store put in reserve in the autumn when the bees had 
their frames reduced in number. In order (that these frames may 
stimulate to breeding, scratch the sealing of the honey with a pin 
(four or five scratches on a comb), when the bees will remove the 
contents from every cell the cover of which is injured, and this will 
act upon the stock as though store was being gathered in the natural 
way. 
Contract the frame room rather than expand it for stocks in frame 
hives unless, indeed, they are very strong. Their greater heat will 
promote breeding, and secure an army of foragers by the time honey 
begins to flow (the very matter upon which almost all hinges). 
Artificial pollen maybe given now with the greatest advantage 
when the weather admits of free flight. Pea flour is more useful 
than Wheat flour, but either will do. Place the artificial pollen in 
trays or boxes, or inverted skeps, slightly covering it with chaff, or 
sprinkling it very thickly upon loose shavings. It will require 
renewal during the day if the bees take it well. Expose it to the sun, 
and screen from wind and rain. 
Warmly cover above their frames every stock. The foolish idea 
that bees do as well if poorly as if thoroughly protected can only be 
held by those who have never seen the results of really good manage¬ 
ment in this direction. 
* The recipe for flour cake has been previously given. It consists of sugar 
boiled carefully with very little water. Into this flour or pea flour is stirred, 
when it is poured into moulds to set. 
