JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
18 
For summer and autumn decoration Alchmeas discolor and miniata 
are very useful, and should be provided in quantity, they being best 
grown as single crowns in 6 or 7-inch pots. They succeed in either 
loam or peat, with about a sixth of sand and a few fine crocks, and 
some pieces of charcoal to keep the soil sweet, as the plants being 
epiphytal consequently require plentiful supplies of water, but the 
compost must be loose so as to allow it to pass away freely. They 
should be grown on shelves near the glass, so as to cause them to 
flower strongly. Tillandsia Lindeni is of easy growth and one of 
the most beautiful. Its leaves are long and narrow and generally 
curved, and when in flower has a fine appearance. It must be grown 
in a light position, and not have too much heat or be overpotted. 
Young plants of Stephanotis being grown on for next season’s 
flowering should have their shoots regularly trained near the glass, 
where they will be exposed to the light and have sufficient air to 
secure the maturation of the growth. Clerodendron Balfourianum 
that has flowered may, if it he desirable to increase the size of the 
plants, be placed in heat; and if requiring more root room afford it, 
employing good yellow loam. The young shoots must be trained 
near the glass so as to insure sturdy growth. Plants of this as large 
as desired can after flowering be placed in a light position in a 
temperature slightly less than the stove, giving no more water than 
will prevent flagging, and after a rest of about six weeks they may 
he introduced to heat and induced to flower again. 
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HE BEE-KEEPER. 1 
THE ART OF SUPERING. 
Successful supering is an art acquired by steady thoughtful 
practice. Beautiful supers of honeycomb are very desirable, 
and thousands of efforts are unsuccessfull} 1, made to obtain them. 
How many supers, large and small, costly and common, are 
placed on hives every season that are never filled 1 Failures in 
supering are common and discouraging to many apiarians. The 
successes of others more experienced and skilful in supering, tend 
to keep alive and encourage the hope in all that future attempts 
will be crowned with success. 
The difficulties in the way of successful supering are, first, un¬ 
favourable weather for honey-gathering ; secondly, the instinctive 
desire or passion for swarming on the part of the bees. To meet 
these difficulties much manoeuvring is often necessary, and there¬ 
fore we regard successful superiDg as an art. The question of 
profit and loss in supering is not to be considered in these notes, 
only the best ways of obtaining super honey. White virgin 
honeycomb taken from the sides and crowns of large swarm 
hives, or bars of white comb outside the brood nest of bar-frame 
hives, are quite equal in quality and appearance to super honey. 
Some eight or ten years ago it was suggested that by enlarging 
bar-frame hives, and by using a greater number of frames in 
them, virgin honey might be obtained without supers. Efforts 
in this direction are now being made. Sections of supers are 
being used and filled in the places of bars. 
Large hives are requisites in the work of successful supering. 
If much work has to be done, or done rapidly, many hands must 
be employed. The effective strength of hives should be equal to 
the w'ork expected. Large strong hives capable of gathering from 
3 to 7 lbs. daily during a glut of honey, speedily fill good large 
supers. The superiority of large hives for this work is so evident 
that it is unnecessary to use a single argument <?r illustration. 
Hives are usually ready for supering about ten days before the 
bees are ready for swarming. If supers are placed on hives before 
the bees begin to be straitened for room they do not enter them 
till they are straitened, sometimes never enter them at all, and 
sometimes enter them for breeding purposes. In favourable 
wmather the time for supering to commence is when the hive is 
filled with brood from side to side, and this happens about ten 
days after all the combs are covered with bees. At such times 
bees want more store room, and readily enter supers and com¬ 
mence work. “Yes,” the reader may say, “I know all this, and 
have done it many times, but my bees invariably swarm and 
never fill the supers.” This is a common occurrence and a great 
difficulty everywhere. The wings have been cut from queens to 
prevent such swarms flying away, or rather to secure their return 
if they fly away. Another manoeuvre is to cut all royal cells from 
[ July 7, 1881. 
the combs before the supers are used, and afterwards to examine 
the hives every few days with a view to remove every royal cell 
whether tenanted or not. If two or three sets of royal cells are 
removed or destroyed the bees often become discouraged, abandon 
all preparations for swarming, and set to work in earnest to fill 
supers. But how can hives be examined internally with supers 
on them ? We place our supers on paper so that their combs 
are not cemented to the crowns of the hives, and therefore can 
be easily lifted off and on the hive without injury to the combs. 
In some apiaries managed on both the swarming and non- 
swarming principles—in other words, in which both swarms and 
supers are sought—there is practised a wise and excellent way of 
having supers filled without danger of losing swarms. One hive 
swarms naturally or is swarmed artificially, and the swarms are 
hived. Next day take the queen from the hive ready for supering, 
or in this case nearly ready for swarming, and give her to the 
hive that swarmed, and then super the hive deprived of its 
queen. Thus two great advantages would be gained. The hive 
that yielded the swarm would have a pregnant and produc¬ 
tive queen, and would soon be ready to yield another swarm 
equal in every way to the first; and the supered hive full of 
bees and brood would not and could not swarm till the young 
princesses came to maturity and piped for three days. Piping 
would probably begin on or about the fifteenth day after the 
removal of the queen ; and while piping is going on how easily 
all the queens but one could be destroyed. By lifting the super 
off and driving all the bees into an empty hive the supernumerary 
queens would be got rid of, and swarming would be next to im¬ 
possible for about another three weeks. Meanwhile the bees, 
without brood to nurse, would go on gathering honey. Hives 
treated in this fashion in good seasons become too plethoric ; but 
if super honey is the summum bonum—the only thing aimed at— 
it would be easy to give it (the hive honey) to the bees of supered 
hives to be carried aloft. We say nothing here about the loss of 
weight sustained in reshipping honey from one hive to be stored 
in supers on another. To those who merely want super honey or 
ornamental glasses completely filled this practice is recommended. 
The practice of getting early swarms, hiving them in moderate¬ 
sized hives, and supering them as soon as they are filled, we 
strongly recommend. The Stewarton system of putting two swarms 
into a hive for supering purposes we do not recommend for pro¬ 
fitable general practice, but for the purpose of getting a large 
quantity of super honey from a given hive the practice may be 
copied now and then. A swarm of bees in May from a large hive 
is capable of doing a great amount of work of all kinds ; and if my 
only aim were to get the largest possible amount of super honey 
from the apiary I would never unite two swarms at the swarming 
season. Two or three swarms may be united with advantage at 
the end of the honey season to make a hive strong for winter and 
for work the year following, and is the time to lay the foundations 
for early swarms and successful supering next year. 
Bees naturally swarm once a year as birds build their nests, 
and by letting them swarm they obey a law of Nature ; and though 
in some extra fine honey years early swarms become parent hives 
by sending off virgin swarms, they are more easily prevented 
from swarming than old stocks that have not swarmed at all. 
Hence they readily take to supers and work heartily in them. 
Swarms—early swarms—rise in honey seasons to the greatest 
weights, and by using a little ingenuity in getting them to store 
honey in supers and side boxes a great amount is sometimes 
obtained. Even from second swarms and turn-outs early and late 
supers may be obtained in honey seasons. Early supers are ob¬ 
tained from second swarms and turn-outs in this way. The queens 
in such swarms are not fertilised, and generally speaking do not 
begin to lay for ten days after they are hived. Very well, by 
hiving them in hives with small supers on them the bees com¬ 
mence to build their combs in the supers, and may fill them with 
sealed honey before the queens begin to breed. Even in un¬ 
favourable weather small supers may be filled on such swarms by 
giving them the honey of the old parent hive after its bees had 
been turned out. 
In using supers a little white guide comb is necessary—natural 
comb is better than artificial foundations—to induce the bees to 
enter them at once, and when they commence to fill them it is 
fortunate if the weather does not cause them to halt before they 
are filled. 
We have not yet tried sectional supers, but have ordered some 
sets of sections in order to give them a fair trial this year. At 
present we like best supers of some size, with good thoroughfares 
between hives and supers. All efforts to prevent breeding in 
supers have failed. Even if queens are prevented from entering 
supers, breeding may take place in them, for bees have the power 
to decide what combs shall be used for brood and what for honey, 
