18 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ January 5, 1882 
beginners, for two destructive seasons killed every bee in some 
gardens; in others one-half, two-thirds, or three-fourths were 
lost. Other seasons, not destructive, but unfavourable for honej r - 
gathering, caused great disappointment amongst beginners. Some 
lost heart altogether, and some thought that a change of hives 
from straw to wood, or wood to straw, would bring success. In 
many cases the change was ma le at some expense without better 
results. Apiarians are, however, hopeful and strong. A few days 
ago I had a letter from an experienced bee-keeper in the north of 
Scotland, who is anticipating a bright and successful future not 
remote. And why should he not ? People who plant orchards 
look hopefully forward, and derive encouragement and pleasure 
by considering the future. Bee-keepers who have been successful 
some years are like other successful men in expecting greater 
success in future. I counted my hives the other day and looked 
into a considerable number of them, and found them in splendid 
condition : I thought then, and thiuk now, that I never had better 
hives at this time of the year, never had brighter prospects, and 
never anticipated greater results. Admitting the uncertainty of 
seasons in our extremely changeable climate, we all know, and 
experienced apiarians believe, that we shall have a return of 
warm summers and honey harvests; and we have good reasons 
for believing that when they come the results of bee-keeping will 
be better than those of the past. Bees are always industrious ; 
they never degenerate—at least we have no evidence on record of 
a single instance of degeneration in the case of bees. Deteriora¬ 
tion of industrial instincts or working powers has never been 
known. The bees of the hamlet now are equal in every sense to 
their ancestors a hundred years ago. If deterioration has not 
been known in the past, we see no reason to fear it in the future. 
As we have no reason to fear a degenerate race of bees, we have 
no goo I reason to expect an inprovement of race. It may be 
possible to have better hives in future than those of the present, 
and doubtless improvements in management will be made from 
year to year, but the time is remote when man will improve the 
bee itself. We may learn lessons from bees, but they learn nothing 
from us. 
The fact that hives are now larger and stronger in many apiaries 
than they were years ago is proof that great progress has been 
made. Mr. Raitt recently told the readers of the Journal that 
a gentleman had engaged his friend and late neighbour, Mr. 
William Mann, to go to a foreign country to manage a large 
apiary. When the gentleman returned from Blairgowrie to Man¬ 
chester he told me that Messrs. Raitt and Mann say that if their 
strong hives have three weeks only of honey weather they yield 
splendid harvests of honey ; and he concluded that if hives can 
do this in Scotland in three weeks they will do much more in 
summers of four months’ duration in a warmer climate. We 
think so too, and believe that the enterprise in which Mr. Mann 
will be manager will be a very successful one. The projection of 
such a scheme in England indicates that progress is being made. 
English bee-keepers have been frequently told during the last ten 
years that little good could be done in bee-keeping with small 
hives, and that large results and profits come from hives of con¬ 
siderable size. All the best apiarians in the country are now 
using large hives, and this is strong evidence of an enlightened 
and onward march. 
The introduction and use of artificial comb foundations is a 
marked improvement in the management of bees. Supering is 
made easy by the use of these foundations—easy for both bees 
and their masters. By filling supers and sections with the foun¬ 
dations the bees readily adopt them, and soon begin to thin the 
wax and lengthen out the cells, and make them ready for the 
reception of honey ; thus the bees have less wax to secrete and 
more honey to store. The stronger foundations used for brood 
combs are as useful as those used in supering, for if given to first 
swarms at the hiving time breeding commences at once, even 
before the cells are finished, the eggs are deposited on the foun¬ 
dations, and the cells are afterwards built around them. If super¬ 
ing is made easy by employing comb foundation progress in 
breeding in swarm hives is made by their use. We thank the 
American bee-keepers for the invention and introduction of arti¬ 
ficial comb foundations. 
We are also, I think, indebted to the American bee-keepers for 
the introduction of sectional supers, which are useful in the retail 
honeycomb trade. Sections of 1 lb. and 2 lbs. of comb are very 
saleable, easily handled and carried. These small sections when 
well filled are so presentable and tempting on breakfast and tea 
tables that commendation is quite unnecessary. If exhibited for 
competition at honey shows they should be judged by number 
or weight from a given hive or from a single apiary. Larger 
supers of glass and wood are more sensational in exhibitions. 
Bee-keepers who study profit will use the kind of supers most 
saleable in the market. Last season our glass supers, nearly 
20 lbs. each, were sold at 2s. per lb. ; straw and wood supers at 
Is. 4 d. and Is. 6d. per lb. 
The attention that is now given to the comforts of bees by 
advanced men is another evidence that progress is being made. 
A few years ago hives were not sufficiently protected in winter. 
Bees are natives of a warmer climate than that of England, and 
therefore suffer much in our cold winters. Many bee-keepers 
now know this and cover their hives well in winter. For many 
long years the most advanced bee-keepers in Scotland have 
covered their straw hives effectively. The advanced men of the 
bar-frame school are now having hives made with double walls, 
and fill the cavities between the walls with chaff. This is a great 
improvement, and in severe winters these chaff hives may be 
trusted to protect the bees. The honour of the invention of the 
chaff hives belongs to America. One more invention or discovery 
will perfect the bar-frame hive—namely, a material more porous 
than wood, which will permit the moisture of bees to pass through 
and out of the hives. We have so many clever bee-keepers 
seeking improvements now that I believe the discovery will be 
made soon. Meanwhile manj r men are doing what they can to 
ventilate the wooden hives and make their bees more comfortable 
in winter. 
Evidences of progress in bee-management could be easily 
drawn from many puints of practice now extensively followed. 
One pleasant feature of the progress already made by bee-keepers 
I would like to notice. It is the fact that they now write and 
speak more kindly of those who differ from them in opinion than 
they did some years ago. The best men amongst us—the real 
Samsons of bee-keeping—refrain to a great extent from employing 
dogmatic language. They know well that whatever is true in 
science and the practice of bee-keeping will advance steadily, and 
sooner or later establish itself. On many questions much can be 
said on both sides ; therefore let us act on the principles of “free 
trade ” and fair play in exchanging opinions, always remembering 
“ kind words never die ” and also that “ charity never faileth.” 
In wishing all a happy new year and great success in future, 
let me ask young apiarians to bear in mind that great results 
more frequently come from perseverance than from great strength 
—“A falling drop will cave a stone.”—A. Pettigrew, Bond on. 
NUCLEUS HIVES—ILL-DEVELOPED BEES. 
I see in an article on page 549, December loth, 1881, by M « 
Cheshire, that the use of very small nucleus hives is open to 
grave objections. Before the article I refer to appeared I had given 
an order to make some nucleus hives, each to hold three frames, 
Woodbury size. Kindly let me have your opinion of them for 
queen-raising, and also for forming nuclei to be afterwards built up 
into stocks. 
Last summer I noticed in my hives that many young bees died in 
a rather peculiar way. Some of them had just bitten through the 
covering of the cells in which they were hatched, others had got the 
head and thorax clear of the cell and died in that position. Can 
you let me know the cause of this ?— Felspar 
[The lax lecturer who, if report says true, described a fossil as of 
the size of a piece of coral, was not apparently more indefinite than 
we have been in talking about “small nucleus hives.” The one to 
which I referred, disparagingly certainly, in a late article, was itself 
iirroduced by another correspondent as “ one that a queen came in 
from Italy with over a hundred bees.” Such boxes, for the word 
hive is hardly elastic enough to be properly applied hrre, contain 
either one or two combs; if the former the cubic contents would be 
about 40 inches, if the latter perhaps as much as 90. 
I do not think, for reasons given in the article which has called 
forth the above letter, that such boxes could at any season in our 
climate be profitably used in queen-raising, even if the sole object 
were to supply the market and we were not troubled with a con¬ 
science. But the nucleus hive of which our correspondent now 
writes is a different affair ; it is to contain three Woodbury frames, 
and so would have not less than 580 cubic inches capacity— i.c., be 
from seven to fourteen times the size of the boxes in reference to 
which the strictures were written, while its population would range 
from two thousand to ten thousand, as one Woodbury frame is not 
fairly covered by less than about a thousand bees, and would easily 
take double or treble that number. Such a hive is able to take 
care of itself and may be readdv nursed into a full-sized colony. 
The twin nucleus frame which I invented about nine years since 
consisted of a dividing Woodbury frame, which fitted into a little 
hive inches long, 9 deep and 3f wide, with a cubic contents of 
250 inches. Between the two half Woodbury combs a queen cell 
was inserted, and in these hives I raised mauy fine queens, and 
pretty constantly secured pure impregnation by a modification of 
