December 4, 1884. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
515 
manure and making into hotbeds for seed-raising, striking cuttings, and 
other purposes. Any that are stored in a large heap and intended solely 
for atfording good leaf soil should not be allowed to heat strongly, but 
should be turned occasionally in order to prevent the formation of a white 
mould or fungus which completely spoils leaf soil. 
Planting Rosea .—November has been very favourable for this work, 
there being little or no rain to prevent its being done well. The ground 
for them should be deeply dug and thoroughly broken up, and any soil 
that has been exhausted either by Roses or other plants shoirld have a 
liberal dressing of either rich loamy soil or short manure well mixed with 
it. Where climbing Roses especially are being renewed, every bit of the 
old soil should be replaced by a fresh compost, or, failing this, some good 
garden soil. Half the failures of Roses against walls and houses is due 
to poverty at the roots. lu many cases they are worse off than plants in 
pots, as the latter do frequently get good top-dressings and liberal supp’ies 
of liquid manure. Those, then, who find their climbing Roses unhealthy 
should see what either replanting in rich soil or at the least a surfacing of 
loam and manure in equal parts will do for them. If the latter plan is 
resorted to the surface soil down to the roots should be removed and be 
replaced by the fresh compost, in*o which the Roses will quickly root. 
Newly planted Roses especially should be mulched with strawy manure, 
and where this may be thought unsightly it may be lightly covered with 
manure. As a further protection from frosts the dwarfs, when thought 
necessary, should have some strawy litter cr fern scattered over them* 
Where Rosas are particularly liable to be injured by frosts it is not advis¬ 
able to at once plant those newly bought in, a better plan being to care¬ 
fully and closely lay them in where they can readily be protected with 
mats or litter, finally planting them out as early in the spring as the 
weather will permit. Do not, however, defer ordering the plants till the 
spring, or a difficulty may be experienced in procuring the best sor's. 
Selcctwn of Rosc,s. —Twenty-four good Hybrid Perpetuals are as fol¬ 
lows:—Alfred Colomb, Charles Lefebvre, Marquise de Castellane, Mons. 
E. Y. Teas, Capitaine Christie, Etienne Levet, Comtessed’Oxford, Louis Van 
Houtte, La France, Duke of Edinburgh, Baroness Rothschild, Dupuy 
Jamain, Marie Finger, General Jacqueminot, Senateur Vaisse, John 
Hopper, Franqois Michelon, Marguerite de St. Amand, Horace Verne*-, 
John S. Mill, Charles Darwin, Mr->. Charles Wood, Sultan of Zanzibar, 
Countess of Rosebery, Maurice Bernardin, Boule de Niege, Cheshunt 
Hybrid, Souvenir de la Malmaison (Bourbon), A. K. Williams, and Rey¬ 
nolds Hole. Of Teas some of the best are Catherine Mermet, Marie Van 
Houtte, Jean Ducher, Souvenir d’un Ami, Innocents Pirola, Devoniensis, 
Niphetos, Rubens, Perle des Jardins, Etoile de Lyon, Gloire de Dijon, 
Madame Lambard, Alba Rosea, Comtesse de Nadaillac, Madame Bravy, 
Adam, Souvenir de Paul Neyron, and Madame Willermoz ; while the in¬ 
valuable Noisette Marechal Niel, and Hybrid Teas such as Lady Mary 
Fitzwilliam, Henreich Schultheis, Earl of Pembroke, Countess of Pem¬ 
broke, and Viscountess Falmouth should also be included in every collec¬ 
tion. For light soils we would prefer to have all on the Manetti stock, 
and for heavy on the Briar or seedling Briar. 
HE BEE-KEEPER. 
S) 
q) f/it' 
A PRACTICAL CHAPTER. 
Bee-keepers are sometimes much p-jzzled by seeing the inex¬ 
perienced apiarian prosper -while the stocks of his more skilful neigh¬ 
bour have dwindled away. But although the experienced are thus 
occasionally defeated they are commonly successful, and are most 
reliable for giving information. At the present time there are many 
bee-keepers with but few years’ experience who have'only had fair 
seasons for their work which has induced them to form a misleading 
confidence in their knowledge. 
During the last twenty-five years there has been no less than seven 
bad seasons, the bees to be kept alive had to be fed throughout the 
whole summer, and a large per-centage of these years the stock had to 
be fed till the end of June. Some of these reasons were, however, in 
the end good ones ; those hives that had been judiciously fed and 
otherwise well managed attained to great weight and remunerated 
the owner for his extra attention, while some apiaries in the same 
seasons were totally decimated. My object in these remarks is to 
impress upon bee-keepers the desirability of being always upon the 
outlook against bad seasons, to have everything in readiness and pre¬ 
pare for any emergency, giving the bees every advantage, and taking 
them at the proper time. One day's delay in feeding may render 
abortive for the season a hive that would have been otherwise profit¬ 
able had food been presented before egg-eating and grub-drowning 
had taken place. Equally important is it too that swarming should 
not bo delayed, and that supers be given at the proper time. Swarms 
may be taken when there is no honey if they are fed, but supers 
should for various reasons not be put on until honey appears, neither 
should they be delayed beyond the proper time, else they may not be 
completed. 
The success of bee-keeping depends greatly upon assisting Nature 
and attending in due time to every' little thing that conduces to the 
well-being of the insect. It is my' object at present not to dwell 
upon the general management of bees and hive.«, but to point out 
when and how to do little things in cases which the bee-beeptr finds 
urgent, yet is unable through inexperience to perform. Feeding is a 
very important matter in bee-keeping, which should have been all 
past in September, but I learn from private letters that there are 
still some neglected hives. A piece of candy laid over the frames or 
opening in the cro'wn of the straw hive will tide over the bees for 
some time, but should , not be continued longer than when syrup (the 
best of all artificial food) can be supplied. Much sy'rup is given to 
the bees by far too thick, which causes it to granulate, and is thereby 
lost. Some sugars are stronger than others, therefore require more 
water to bring them to a proper consistency. The usual way of 
measuring or weighing is often not satisfactory. My ow'ii plan is 
to put the sugar to be dissolved in the vessel, then pour water upon it 
until it is covered from 1 to 2 inches, put it on the fire, stir until 
dissolved, and then boil for one minute ; it is as easy to boil the water 
sugar combined as it is to boil water alone. 
There is no difficulty' to get strong hives to feed. In a recent 
article 1 described my compound feeder which I have found the best 
for ordinary feeding. Float and dummy feeders I do not approve of ; 
the former is very liable to kill bees, and the latter has sometimes 
the same fault, with the additional one of the food being presented to 
the bees at the point farthest from them. Stimulative feeding is 
another error, though of very old date, but long since abandoned here. 
What its present advocates see in it I know not, as I have failed after 
many queries to elicit a single reply respecting its advantages. It is 
with weak hives that difficulty is experienced to induce them to take 
food, and it is for such hives that tbe greatest care is required that no 
bees be destroyed. The best plan to feed such a hive in moveable 
combs is to pour the syrup from a spouted vessel (as recommended 
long since by “ A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper ”) into a comb slightly 
elevated until all the cells are filled, first the one side, then the other. 
This may be repeated until such times as the bees can be induced to 
take the syrup from a feeder. It is necessary' after the comb has 
been so filled that the surplus sugar should be removed with a sponge 
or soft cloth, so that the surface of the comb be as dry and inviting to 
the bees as possible. In a hive with fixed combs syrup cannot be 
administered with safety in the same manner, but a barrel-feeder with 
a narrow tube not more than one-eighth of an inch thick, having a 
trough at the bottom sufficient for two bees only, may be pushed into 
the cluster. This feeder is on the fountain principle, therefore will 
not drip even though the bees do not sip the syrup. 
The time that perplexes the bee-keeper most in feeding bees is 
when the hives are at the point of starvation during summer, when 
they are crowded to the door so much that feeders cannot be readily 
applied there, while it is equally impracticable to feed above, as the 
crow’n of the hive is covered with supers and their coverings. It 
will be observed from the foregoing that such cases and times have 
not been infrequent in the past, and the hives often standing at a 
distance of some miles from a house, it would be no easy task to 
strip a lot of hives to get crown feeders placed, and as injudicious 
to leave feeders at the entrances, which if unemptied might cause a 
general melee the next day. An easy and safe method of administering 
food in such cases is to have a hole in the floor through which a 
thimble of perforated zinc passes, and which contains a small float. 
Now fill any vessel with syrup, not more than a quarter of an inch 
deeper than the thimble, and press it up to the floor either by blocks 
or other fastenings, such as little fillets to receive the ears of the 
vessel. This simple y'et effective feeder is admirably adapted where 
a great number of hives require feeding, as it can be filled and 
replaced in a few seconds, while the operator is not annoyed by' bees. 
The ventilating floor if desired may have a permanent feeder, which 
is even easier filled, as it only requires to be drawn out a little to be 
filled, then pushed in, while it is easy of removal altogether. 
Before dismissing this subject I would -warn people against the 
advice to feed bees inside the house, and particularly against shutting 
in the bees any time for that purpose, as it simply means ruin to the 
hive. Artificial heat, too, in any manner I have found is disastrous ; 
it causes the bees to separate and to fly out when the weather is 
unsuitable, then if the temperature is lowered many are sure to die 
when they have isolated themselves from the cluster. I have 
s witnessed many' cases of artificial heating, but never saw any good 
arise from it. A few years ago I saw a hive set on fire that the 
owner heated with a warm brick. The brick did not seem too hot, 
but the material it was wrapped in had become very dry, and when 
wrapped up generated enough heat to set fire to it, which the owner 
happily discovered in time to remove the brick. 
I have previously shown the dislike bees have to entering sections 
having the broad bottom rail, and in my last article described a 
section without it, but which formed a rigid supc-, yet each easily 
separated from one another. Since then I have made a slight altera¬ 
tion on the common section, which serves the same purpose, reducing 
