JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
hr 
142 
[ February 16, 1882. 
large enough and kill great numbers of bees. Many hives are 
thus destroyed. The bees are killed singly, and their heads only 
are eaten by the mice. Perhaps a word of explanation may help 
beginners to understand an expression used above—viz., “ enemies 
real and supposed.” Bees are gifted with courage and the in¬ 
stinct of self-defence. And if young and inexperienced bees 
sitting at or coming out of their doors see strange objects near— 
men, cattle, things moving—they anticipate molestation and fly at 
the objects. Older and experienced bees have learned better 
manners, and go to work over and amongst men, cattle, &c., with¬ 
out fear of annoyance. This simple fact or statement goes a long 
way to explain the mystery of some bees being more savage than 
others. Bees standing in my garden near a public thoroughfare 
are quiet inoffensive creatures, and young bees born here are soon 
domesticated, and remain so, I believe, as long as they live ; but 
bees born in a corner remote from the haunts of men or in an un¬ 
frequented garden do not like strangers to go near them, and are 
apt to use their stings to drive them back. The lesson I wish here 
to teach is this, that the most savage bees I have ever known can 
be domesticated by making them accustomed to the sight of 
human beings near their hives, and moving about them. Be¬ 
ginners should know, too, that bees dislike and resent interference 
with their hives. Rough handling and rueful shocks provoke 
bees very much, and often enrage them, yet they can be trained 
to bear and tolerate gentle handlings and the turning-up of their 
hives without complaint or annoyance. 
However, in all attempts to handle hives beginners should use 
liberally smoke from fustian rags. New fustian and corduroy is 
so full of stiffening matter that it will not burn or smoke, but if 
this matter is quite washed out it will burn and answer as well as 
old in smoking bees to prevent them from stinging. With a piece 
the size of a man’s hand, and rolled up to the thickness of a candle 
and smoking at one end, the most savage bees can be mastered. 
By holding the smoking end of the fustian close to half in the 
door of hive to be lifted and examined, and the smoke vigorously 
blown into the hive, the bees are mastered and cowed, and run 
from it as far as they can go. Such smoke does no harm, and 
bees thus mastered can be handled with safety—that is to say, 
their hives may be turned up and examined, and works of mani¬ 
pulation performed. The secret of the use of smoke in handling 
hives and bees is a very valuable one, and it was bought of an 
Irishman in Edinburgh for a gill of whisky many years ago. 
As it is my intention to write a series of articles for the benefit 
of beginners in bee-keeping, I shall be glad if they freely aTt 
questions and state their difficulties to the Editor. By doing this 
they will help others as well as themselves. — A. Pettigrew, 
Boredom. 
SEASONABLE HINTS. 
The sooner all hives are now examined the better. The open 
winter has been unusually conservative of bee life, and the fre¬ 
quent opportunities for exercise have caused a greater con¬ 
sumption of stores than usual. Hives found to be light in stores 
must be fed at race. At this early date 1 prefer sugar cake with¬ 
out the flour, but very needy cases may have syrup in the usual 
way. I find that bees feeding on the cake remain quiet and 
contented, while those receiving syrup are excited and desirous 
of going abroad. All excitement should as yet be avoided, as it 
is too early for extensive breeding being encouraged. 
Winter packing should in no case be removed, except to change 
it if damp. The number of bees in a hive has not yet reached 
its lowest point. Indeed, with us in Scotland, the 1st of April is 
about the date when stocks are at their lowest in point of num¬ 
bers. With diminished populations and increasing brood-rearing 
it is evident that warm packing is of at least as much value in 
spring as in winter. 
Some bee-keepers are taking alarm at the large numbers of 
dead bees found in front of certain hives. These are generally 
cases where a large proportion of the stores had either been of 
unwholesome quality, as honeydew, or had not been properly 
sealed in autumn from too late feeding. An examination of such 
stocks will generally reveal an abnormal quantity of brood. How 
significant the fact that bees, as well as plants, hasten to pro¬ 
pagate their species on the approach of danger to their own ex¬ 
istence 1 There is a danger of such stocks working themselves to 
death. This is the American trouble known as spring dwindling. 
The only cure for it is to remove all combs with unsealed or un¬ 
wholesome stores, and supply others if they can be had of better 
quality, or give dry combs and sugar cake. At the same time 
contract the brood-nest till the bees are crowded, and give any 
comb containing brood, beyond what the bees can be crowded 
on, to any other healthy stock. 
In such cases, however, keep a sharp look-out for foul brood. 
Some authors declare foul brood to be one of the results of 
dysentery or of chilled brood. My experience is that dysentery 
is more often the result of foul brood, and bees in hives that are 
affected with it are generally the first to start breeding, from 
causes already hinted at. Some people may not see foul brood 
though it may be in the comb. In its sealed and perforated state » 
it is unmistakeable, but more often there has been an attempt by 
the bees to clear it out, and thus it may escape notice. By 
holding a comb so that light will fall along the lower side of the 
cells, the scaly remains of diseased brood may be seen sticking to 
them. Newer combs may tell the same tale if held between the 
eye and a window. For foul brood I know of no remedy other 
than stamping it out—that is, no attempt need be made to save 
the combs, and even the honey had better be sacrificed, though 
the bees may be saved by giving them clean combs after a short 
quarantine. All hives, frames, and other woodwork should then 
be scalded, scraped, and washed in limewash. 
Now is the time that most queens give out. In large apiaries 
from 5 to 10 per cent, of hives, even those with comparatively 
young queens, may lose their queens in early spring. A sharp 
look-out should be kept on the neatly raked ground in front of 
each hive. I have already found three hives queenless this spring. 
In such cases I never grudge to unite the bees to another stock, 
though if they are strong in numbers I often obtain a spare 
queen from a neighbour, or deprive a skep of its queen, and 
place the skep upon the nearest hive for a few daj s till the bees 
are well united. 
Stimulative feeding—that is, the regular administration of syrup 
and pea flour—had better be deferred till the beginning of March 
at soonest. A pint of bees in a healthy condition on 1st .April will, 
if attended to and if they have a good queen, be quite ready to 
store surplus by the time the Clover blooms. Early-breeding 
stocks frequently fail during the honey season, the queen gives 
out, or the bees get the swarming mania and will not be con¬ 
trolled. Healthy small stocks with good queens commencing to 
breed later will go on breeding right through the season. 
Now is the time to prepare hives, supers, &c., for the coming 
season. Dealers in apiarian supplies generally give discount on 
early orders, and later orders are frequently impossible to get 
filled owing to the press of business later on. Orders for American 
goods should specially be forwarded in good time, as distance 
adds another difficulty in the way of later supplies.— William 
Raitt, Blairgowrie. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Thos. S. Ware, Hale Farm, Tottenham .—Catalogues of Hardy 
Perennials ( illustrated ), Florists' Flowers, and Seeds. 
*** 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. We 
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. 
Dendrobium nobile (Run). —We have no knowledge of the plant to which 
you refer. Will you kindly furnish us with particulars of the source whence 
you derived the very remarkable statement quoted ? 
Notice to Leave (A Constant /trader ).—If a gardener is paid weekly he 
can leave his situation by giving a full week’s notice—that is to say, if on the 
day on which he receives his wages he gives his employer a written notice to 
leave, he (the gardener) can leave at the expiration of that time if no agreement 
to the contrary was entered into at the time of the engagement. 
Astrantia major (G. U .).—This plant is not a native of England, but is 
recorded as naturalised in some places, especially in the neighbourhood of Mal¬ 
vern and Ludlow, where it is supposed to have escaped from some garden. This 
is probably the case with your specimen, although you could not trace its origin. 
The plant is described in several works on British botany, such as Bentham’s 
“ Handbook of the British Flora ” and Hooker's “ Student's Flora.” 
