July 5, 1883. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
17 
should be taken off close to where it springs from the old wood and 
inserted in sandy soil and covered with a bellglass. 
Celosias are grand flowering plants for winter decoration, as they last 
in good condition for fully three months. Seed should be sown at once 
in heat, and the young plants afterwards encouraged to grow rapidly in 
gentle warmth until they are ready for 6-inch pots, when cooler treat¬ 
ment can be given them. While growing in heat light and air must be 
freely admitted to them, or they will soon grow weakly. 
STRAW STEWARTON HIVES. 
In reading Mr. Pettigrew’s remarks on- “ Straw Stewarton 
Hives ” (see page 329), I do not quite understand liim. Will he 
please say the size of his wooden runs, depth and width, and 
whether the under side of the runs should be grooved for the 
first rounded roll of straw ? Should the runs be cut into shape 
or merely bent like a hoop ? and ought the runs to be cut through 
their full width to let the bars down to the level of the runs, or 
only the inside cut, and the outside remain entire ? Should the 
straw lid lie flat on the bars, or raised in the centre, so that the 
bees can walk over the bars P Are the bees sure to build on 
the bars P 
Mr. Pettigrew says, “ In feeding bees in hives such as I am 
now describing, how easy it will be, put on empty supers, lift off 
their lids and put what food we want to give them on the 
bars. Will he please make this clearer—detail the process P— 
A Novice. 
SUPERING. 
Honey is now being collected in great quantities in many 
parts of the country, and there is every promise so far that 
1883 will rank among the red-letter bee years. The flow of 
honey is, however, some fortnight or three weeks later than it 
has been in other productive seasons. All vegetation was back¬ 
ward this srimmer, but the genial combination of sunshine and 
showers has caused rapid development of leaves and flowers 
during the latter part of the last, and so far during the present 
month. Where stocks have had timely attention they are now 
rewarding the bee-keeper's care and outlay by an ample return 
either in the shape of extracted or super honey. 
Many cottagers in our neighbourhood lest their stocks during 
April and early May, but the stronger which survived have done 
well, especially by throwing off very heavy swarms, and in the 
case of some nearly equally good casts. We try to impress on 
cottagers the mistake they make in considering the greater 
number of swarms and casts they can hive as a sign of the 
greatest gain. The man who can boast to his neighbour of 
having a stock which has given him a swarm and a cast, and 
perhaps a colt, and a virgin swarm from the first-hived swarm, 
and points out the five skeps—making, it must be owned, a grand 
display as the product of one hive—should have done better. He 
is not making his bees do their best for him. He will “ take up,” 
as he puts it, three or four light-weighing hives in autumn, an 
for the sake of a few pounds of honey destroy most likely a heap 
of brood, besides breaking up comb which it has taken the bees 
all the summer to build. In one way it is as well that the combs 
be broken up, for casts invariably build greater quantities of 
drone comb, and the presence of this would be detrimental to 
the success of the colony during the following season. But it 
would be far better to return the casts to their parent hive, and 
to give more room to the bees, so that they might store super 
honey for their owner. When once a man has used a bar-frame 
hive intelligently he will not wish again to keep his bees in skeps ; 
but very much more might be done in the way of obtaining 
beautifully filled supers from skeps than is now generally 
attempted by their owners. 
A small bellglass or a miniature skep, called a cap, are nearly 
always the receptacles placed over straw hives for the surplus. 
We have before pointed out how much inferior such supers are 
to wooden sectional supers. Hive-dealers are now springing up 
in all parts of the country, and the owners of bees can purchase 
from them these sections at such a nominal outlay that it would 
not be worth their while to make them themselves. Nor could 
they with any amount of patience and painstaking put together 
such neat, handy, and convenient little articles as those turned 
out by machines. We would, therefore, advise every bee-keeper 
to have a set or two by him. These sectional supers are made 
up of a number of little boxes without tops or bottoms, arranged 
side by side, with their dividers of zinc or wood. These sections 
are held together in a rack, which can be placed either over the 
frames of the modern hive or on a straw skep. At the risk of 
repeating advice often given before we will again give directions 
for the arrangement of supers over skeps. Where the skep is 
flat-topped and has a hole worked in the centre of its crown the 
matter is simple enough. The rack of sections is set over the 
central opening at the proper time and well wrapped up to 
prevent all loss of heat. Unless the super be kept very warm 
the bees will not under ordinary circumstances enter it. When 
bees are in a state to be supered in a dome-shaped skep, a 
circular hole some 4 inches across should be cut with a sharp 
penknife, and when the piece of straw plait is withdrawn a puff 
of smoke will keep the bees from overflowing. Over this hole a 
piece of zinc may be placed for the moment. Some plaster of 
Paris should then be mixed with sufficient water to render it of 
the consistency of cream, and this should be poured all round 
the central hole in such a manner as to form a flat level surface 
on which the section crate can be stood firmly. A piece of 
excluder zinc may be used over the aperture, often with good 
effect, but it is seldom that the queen will remain in sections, 
even should she go up for a short time. We would rather do 
without the excluding zinc over such a small opening as the 
4-inch entrance. The zinc is likely to embarrass the bees, and 
the opening might become choked. But we have had beautiful 
supers filled over straw lnves both with and without the ex¬ 
cluding zinc. When the plaster of Paris is ready for the 
reception of the super tbe covering placed over the hole is 
withdrawn, and the sectional rack pressed well down on the 
soft surface. This will soon harden, and form a capital plat¬ 
form on which to work supers during the summer, and in autumn 
it will be easily removed and the skep wrapped up in its reduced 
form to pass through the winter.—P. H. P. 
(To be continued.) 
COVERING BEES. 
An article in the Journal a fortnight ago has induced me to give 
you a description of the way I cover up my bees, and I hope it may 
be useful to other bee-keepers. I use a bee horse, which stands 
inches from the ground and holds four hives—quite enough for 
my small garden. On this I place the hives, over them I put a cover 
made of deal about a quarter of an inch thick and high enough to go 
over a super when required, or feeding bottle. Over all the hives I 
place a piece of tarred felt, such as you see in ironmongers’ shops. 
I then get some galvanised iron wire, fasten it at one end to the 
horse, pass it over the top of the covers, and fasten to the other end 
of the horse. I find this a very good plan ; the cost is not much, 
and it keeps the bees cool in summer and warm and dry in winter. 
Having had a good hive blown over, I have now no cause for anxiety, 
let the gusts of wind which do so much mischief in small gardens 
blow as they may.— Clifton. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Barnart & Co., Vogelenzang, near Haarlem.— Catalogue, of Dutch Floater 
Roots. 
J. Backhouse & Son, York .—Catalogue of Stove and Greenhouse Plants. 
W. Dobbie, G2, Preston Street, Baversham. — List of Pelargoniums and 
Fuchsias. 
* All correspondence should be directed either to “The Editor” 
or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. Ilogg 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 Bee subjects, and should never 
send more than two or three questions at once. All articles in¬ 
tended 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. 
Parsley (Thomas Pallet ).—Although we have seen Parsley closely re¬ 
sembling yours, we are not sure that we have seen any with leaves quite si 
