60 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ July 17, 1884. 
Late Hovses .—Late Grapes intended for bottling or keeping until after 
Christmas should have the shoulders well tied up to allow of the full 
development of the berries, and admit of a free circulation of air through 
the bunches in the autumn when the leaves fall. Keep the foliage 
regulated and the strongest laterals stopped where extension is likely to 
interfere with the even distribution of the sap, but do not practise close 
pinching, as it prevents root-action, and is nearly as inimical to a good 
finish as overcropping. Muscats, and all Grapes for that matter, having a 
great part of their roots in inside borders, will require heavy waterings 
with diluted liquid manure or guano water when the berries begin to take 
their last swelling, and should be applied at a temperature of 80° to 85°, 
and a good mulching given of short manure to keep the surface roots in 
action, which is a great aid to the swelling, especially those that are heavily 
cropped, and the ammonia given out by the manure will keep red spider 
in check. 
Strawberry Hammonia. —In our hardy fruit garden calendar last 
week this Strawberry was accidentally printed Harmonia. We think it 
well to correct this, as this variety is found to be very good in several 
gardens, and appears not unlikely to increase in popularity. 
=T^ 
a 
AB bee-ke:eper. 
SEASONABLE NOTES—SUPEEING-. 
Bees and bee keepers are having a glorious time o£ it now. 
The splendid weather of the last three weeks has been all that 
can be desired, and honey has been flowing as copiously as in the 
red-letter years of 1876 and 1878. Supers have been and are 
being rapidly filled and sealed, and the extractor where used has 
been able to give good results. At such a time, when some bee- 
keepers have supers filled so rapidly there are other keepers cf 
bees who are leaving their stocks to waste time by idly hanging 
out over the floorboards, those who have learnt to use bar-frame 
hives have learnt how to get the surplus honey and brood at 
their command; but there are still ownei’s of skeps whose very 
system of management prevents the bees from doing their little 
best. Much more may be done with straw skeps than some 
owners of bar-frame hives imagine or alloiv. We have previously 
shown how the skep, even the round-topped one, can be made a 
hive for supering. We wish that some keerers of bees who in 
this busy season make their bees idle, could see what we are 
doing at this date with an ordinary-sized skep. The stock is a 
dome-shaped domicile, and was purch>sed last winter from a 
cottager leaving the distiuct. We wished to prevent its swarm¬ 
ing, and to see what could be done with it as a section-filler. As 
the season’s history of this skep may give some hints to begin¬ 
ners in bee-keeping we shall endeavour to show how we got it 
into its present state—a teeming mass of bees working five 
boxes of sections at once. 
In early spring, the straw ring serving as a handle, together 
with about two rims of straw, were cut out with a sharp penknife 
and a feeder placed over the hole. The stock was gently fed until 
in May it was a powerful colony. It remained with t' e rest of 
our hives in a state of rest during May, neither going back nor 
advancing. When the change of weather came and honey com¬ 
menced to flow a small rack of sections was placed on it. This 
rack is simply a shallow box just holding the sections; the 
dividers rest on the sides of the box, and in the bottom is a 
4-inch hole corresponding with the hole cut in the top of the 
skep. When this rack has been placed on the hive it is propped 
up level by packing cotton wool under the board or by winding 
round and round on the top of the hive a quantity of tow, flannel, 
or in fact anything to exclude air and to keep the rack in posi¬ 
tion. In order to get the bees at once into this box of sections 
a piece of comb containing brood was placed in one of the sec¬ 
tions just over the entrance. A puff of smoke at the mouth of 
the hive and a little tapping soon sent the bees pellmell into the 
section rack. Once there they did not leave it, ljut at once pro¬ 
ceeded to work out the foundation. 
The weather became much warmer in a few days, and again 
the bees showed want of room and ventilation by standing out 
thickly on the floorboard. We now raised the body hive a little 
by placing wedges under it, and a day or two after, when the bees 
again began to appear outside, we placed a second row of sections 
in the rack, lifting out one nearly-filled section from the first 
batch and putting it in the centre of the new set, bees and all. 
This soon brought up the idle bees from the bottom and work 
went on merrily. We had now two rows of 2 lb. sections, seven 
in each well on the road. A sudden burst of heat and newly 
hatched bees warned us to give still more room. We therefore 
constructed another rack, similar to the first, to take fwo other 
boxes of sections, and in this we placed another fourteen 2 lb. 
sections. Bees were now clustering out thickly on the shelf and 
against the hive. We gave a puff of smoke between the sections 
and the hive carefully lifted off the rack, and put the empty one 
in its place. We then examined the first lot, found three sections 
in each box fully completed, removed them, shaking the bees on 
to the other rack, and putting empty sections to fill up the gaps. 
The lower rack now became the top one. The whole edifice was 
well wrapped up with woollen stuff, and we had the pleasure 
before evening of seeing the bees at work in the four boxes. 
On Friday last honey was being rapidly stored, and soon some 
of the middle combs will be taken out; but Saturday was very 
hot and close, and although all the boxes were well filled with 
bees, a ball began to form against the outside of the hive. We 
never like to see any bees left unemployed. Sections were not 
properly sealed above, and the erection was quite high enough 
already. We therefore got other seven sections, two with comb 
already built out in them. We placed dividers between them, 
and simply tied them together as a box, placing a wedge between 
the two middle ones to form an entrance. We then merely stood 
this box on the shelf against the side of the skep where the bees 
were hanging out, and knocked off the ball to the front of the 
gap in the new box of sections. The bees soon began to explore 
it, and are now working well in it, and not an idle bee is now to 
be seen in the colony. They have elongated the brood combs in 
the skep to touch the floorboard, and we shall place a band of 
wood around them to protect them in case of change of 
weather. 
Bees when watched and gradually set to work as in this case 
will build in any receptacle so long as it is in contact with the 
hive. We once took some bees for a fiiend who had built a fine 
lot of comb and stored and sealed up honey in it in no receptacle 
whatever. The hive stood on a slab in a niche in a wall, and 
they had simply built the combs like buttresses from the hive to 
the wall. We also once found a beautiful lot of pure comb honey 
in a drainpipe which supported the skep). The bees had passed 
below through a crack in the floorboard, and their owner wondered 
they did not swarm, seeing what a lot of bees worked to and fro 
from the hive. He had no idea that having been provided with 
such a roomy receptacle for working in they had no idea of 
swarming. We have only given this account of the straw skep 
to show novices what they can do with the same appliances, and 
we hope that our brethren who are well versed in the art of 
superiug will forgive us for occupying so much space over the 
doings of one hive when thousands of supers are being equally 
Avell filled in all parts of the country. Our next contribution 
shall treat of the supering of a bar-frame hive.—P. H. P. 
e 
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. \\^e 
request that no one will write [)rivately 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 
onl}". We cannot reply to questions through the post, and we 
do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
strawberry King of the Earlies (.4. G. Evesham ).—This variety was 
raised by Mr. Thomas Laxton, at the Girtfordj Experimental Garden, 
Biggleswade. 
Fruit-Growing Establishments (Fj7is).—It is quite impossible for us to 
answer your question. It would occupy far too much space to publish the 
names of all gardens where fruit is well and extensively grown, while to make 
a selection would be invidious. All the information you really need tuay be 
gathered from the reports of the leading fruit shows that have been held 
during the past two or three years. 
Pruning Fruit Trees {I. E. II .).—If your trees are growing at all freely 
by all means stop the summer growths as usual, as the stronger the growth 
of the branches the stronger will be that of the roots, and the more fibrous 
