March 24, 1881 . ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 239 
when growth is pushing cut hack to within a couple of eyes of the 
base. Epiphyllums that have flowered should be potted. They 
succeed in turfy loam with a little well-decayed manure, and should 
not be overpotted; grafted plants do not need much root space. 
When it is desired to increase the stock of Allamandas, Bougain¬ 
villeas, Clerodendrons, and other quick-growing plants, cuttings can 
be taken of the shoots when 6 or 7 inches long with a heel, and 
inserted in small pots of light sandy soil in a close moist heat. 
Croton cuttings 8 to 10 inches long now inserted will strike freely in 
brisk moist heat. The tops of any tall Dracaenas should also be 
taken off, potted, and treated similarly. The old stems laid in open 
material and kept moist will produce shoots with root* freely, and 
when sufficiently large should be detached and potted. Cuttings of 
Aphelandras, Gardenias, Ixoras, Rondeletias, and similar plants 
taken off with a heel, being careful not to injure the bark, and in¬ 
serted in sandy soil, will strike better now than later in the season, 
and if kept growing make useful plants by autumn. Amaryllises are 
producing their flower scapes, and should be assisted with tepid 
weak liquid manure. Gloxinias started some time ago may now be 
shifted into larger pots, and be placed near the glass to keep them 
sturdy. Pot another batch, and start in gentle heat. 
1 
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DISCUSSION ON MR. LYON’S PAPER AT THE 
CONVERSAZIONE OE THE BRITISH BEE-KEEPERS’ 
ASSOCIATION. 
EXPERIMENTS ON HIVE SIDES, BY MR. CHESHIRE. 
Bishop Tozer, occupying the chair, said he must express his 
thanks to Mr. Lyon for the wonderfully clear way in which he had 
put his theory before them. The thing they had to consider was how 
they could best photograph what they had heard and bring it before 
the intelligence of the labouring classes. He invited Mr. Cheshire to 
begin the discussion. 
Mr. Cheshire said he thought Mr. Lyon had worked out his hive 
with the materials to which he had limited himself with a good deal 
of ingenuity, and that nothing seemed to remain to be suggested 
which would not add to the cost. If he said anything which would 
tend to show that the hive under discussion was not perfect he must 
not be understood to be detracting from the value of the good work 
Mr. Lyon had in hand ; yet with the expenditure of very little more 
money the hive might be made much more serviceable, especially for 
winter, than in its present form ; but before explaining how he would 
refer to one or two points occurring incidentally in the paper read. 
Mr. Lyon had spoken disparagingly of distance tacks, but he ventured 
to predict that they would hold their own very much longer than the 
broad-shouldered frames, which were unconquerably inconvenient in 
several directions, always getting fixed, and only removeable by a 
wrench most irritating to the bees; while the more usual form of 
frame on a metal runner admitted of slipping backwards and forwards 
half a dozen at a time in the readiest manner. [Mr. Hooker.—These 
broad shoulders are always shrinking and swelling, and so are always 
either too tight or too loose.] The question also had been raised 
whether pitch used for waterproofing would be a success ; but he 
could assure Mr. Lyon that the plan he had devised and first suggested 
in “ Practical Bee-keeping ” seven years before had been most ser¬ 
viceable to cottagers, as he had often been able to notice. It was 
only necessary to cover roughly with pitch the wooden article to be 
waterproofed and then spread paper over it. The outside of the paper 
was now pressed down with a heated flat iron. The running pitch 
settled into all cracks and soaked the paper, preventing the weather 
from afterwards affecting it, and preserving it for years. Mr. Cheshire 
said that the main objection he should make to Mr. Lyon’s hive was 
the thinness of its walls. Nothing was really more essential than 
high non-conductivity ; and many so-called cheap hives, failing here, 
had much to answer for [hear, hear]. He had lately had a corre¬ 
spondence with a gentleman of the sister island upon this very point, 
and the result had been a determination on his (Mr. Cheshire’s) part 
to put the whole thing to the test of experiment, the results of which 
he now presented to the meeting. (Mr. Cheshire illustrated his 
remarks with a number of boxes of different makes.) He said, I have 
here a number of tin chambers, all capable of holding 12 ozs. of water. 
I placed these in the several boxes before us after filling them with 
water at 200°, and exposed them under equal conditions, noting care¬ 
fully the times occupied in each case by the water in falling through 
a certain number of degrees of temperature. This very delicate 
thermometer was used, and the calculations were made according to 
Newton’s law of cooling, which, applied to our purpose, is in effect 
that temperature changes in direct proportion to the difference between 
the temperature of the body under experiment and the surrounding 
air. I found that if the non-conductivity of the single hive side of 
five-eighth-inch pine be represented by 1, that of the double side, as 
we have it in this second box, with an inch of dead air would be 
represented by 4. I now proceeded to compare this dead air space 
with the same space packed with chaff, and found that this in pre¬ 
venting loss of heat was twice and a half as effective as dead air, or 
in other words that its non-conductivity should be represented by 10. 
I had foreseen the superiority of the chaff to the air space, but was 
not prepared for so great a difference. It has been argued air is a 
better non-conductor than any solid substance, and therefore it is 
better than any form of packing ; but the fallacy lies in this, that 
the so-called dead air is not dead but circulating. It rises against 
the inner skin of the hive and falls where it touches the outer, and 
so is ever acting as a distributor of heat. In the same way a man 
in bed might argue that the air is a better non-conductor than the 
bedclothes, therefore he would say I shall be warmer without them ; 
but universal experience contradicts the supposition. The bedclothes 
are useful because they prevent the circulation of air, and that next 
the body, being warmed, is imprisoned instead of passing away for 
cold to take its place. 
The advantage of a non-conductive packing being proved I now 
asked whether chaff was the best material at command for this pur¬ 
pose, and cork dust as used for packing Spanish Grapes at once 
occurred to me as a waste product to be had generally for the ask¬ 
ing, and trying this I found that it was much more effective than 
chaff, giving me a non-conductivity of 14 instead of 10. I had now 
a hive side three and half times as good as the air space and double 
skin of wood, and which has for the cottager and amateur this great 
advantage, that while accurate carpentry is needed to secure dead (?) 
air, the cork packing makes the air practically dead, even if the wood 
joints be most defective in their fit. The cottager with very little 
trouble could convert the hive as shown by Mr. Lyon into a cork- 
packed one thus :—Having secured a second box so much larger than 
the one used for the hive body that the latter would go into it with 
a space of an inch or so between them, he would complete his hive but 
omit the alighting board ; and now, putting the former into position, 
would make a little wooden bridge, which would act as a tunnel, per¬ 
mitting the bees to pass from the inner box through the outer one 
into the air. Cork dust would now be somewhat tightly packed 
between them and covered above by wooden slips, when the cottager 
would possess a hive superior for wintering to the most costly ones 
now in common use. The bottom would be a fixture, but this would 
be no disadvantage in such a hive as would then be. With hive sides 
made as described small lots of bees may be wintered with success 
almost incredible to those using thin hives only. A teacupful of 
bees placed on two frames in a twin hive 3 inches thick and chaff- 
packed has gone on well since the end of October till now, the 
queen breeding continually on the frame against the division board. 
Five other nuclei I have similarly wintered with no casualty. In 
thin hives the sides are too cold to permit the bees to touch them in 
hard weather, so that they are driven to remaining in the middle of 
their frames exposed on all sides, while they are often lost in detach¬ 
ments because they cannot get from comb to comb ; but in these they 
winter by preference against the hive wall, and are thus only exposed 
on one side, while they close the frame ends for themselves, and can 
pass always freely from comb to comb without a possibility of getting 
separated from one another. The advantage may be seen at once by 
stating that a thin wall would pass as much heat through it in a week 
as a cork-packed one would [in three months ; and that if we take the 
heat of the cluster as 65° Fahr., a little calculation based upon New¬ 
ton’s law (which though lately proved not absolutely accurate for 
extreme temperatures is sufficiently so for such as those with which 
we have to do), we shall find that my hive side will be as bearable to 
the bees with an external temperature of 20° as that of 1-inch pine 
would be with the outside air at 59°. Mr. Cheshire added, I have not 
made any experiments in reference to straw. Of course the test 
apparatus must be made accurately to give data of any value, and 
this involves a good deal of cost, but notwithstanding I do not mean 
to leave the straw untried. 
Mr. Cowan said, Of course their object was to teach cottagers to 
keep bees on the most improved system. He questioned very much 
whether they were really doing very much good in giving them a 
very cheap hive like this. The objection he had to the hive shown 
was the thinness of its sides, but of course it would be in a great 
measure got over if Mr. Cheshire’s plan were adopted. He was very 
much interested in the manner Mr. Lyon manufactured those frames, 
but he was very much afraid the ingenuity displayed was more than 
the general cottager in England could be accredited with. If the 
Association desired to do good in this matter it would be well of 
them to have their frames made ar.d supply them to cottagers at a 
cheap rate. Of course all had their crotchets; Mr. Cheshire had dis¬ 
tance tacks, but he had nothing. Anyone who had practised a little 
would be able to do just as well without distance tacks. Another 
objection he had to shoulder frames was the propolisation. He did 
not object very much to the size of the frames, but he should like to 
see them much longer than they were in the specimen hive, the 
reason being that the queen bee was induced to spread out her brood 
on one frame in early spring much more rapidly than she would if she 
had to move from one frame to another ; therefore he preferred the 
longer frames, and the depth might be a little less than those shown 
