304 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. [ September 28, 1882. 
the earlier swarms for strength and activity. In a week, or ten 
days at most, they are filled with brood and ready for supering. 
Meanwhile the turnouts with young queens fill their hives, and, 
generally speaking, make excellent stocks for keeping. Thus the 
eggs of pregnant queens are used in hives empty of brood. 
In good seasons strong hives managed on the non-swarming 
system are ready for supering before supering should begin. 
The honey gathered from fruit trees, Sycamores, and other early- 
flowering plants, is too dark in colour for supering. It does not 
look well in any kind of supers. In early summer, too, how 
difficult it is to keep brood out of supers. At this season bees are 
bent on multiplying their numbers, and show by their conduct 
that “ excluders ” are useless, and that they can carry eggs 
wherever they go. They sometimes—nay, often, cut down honey¬ 
comb in supers, and empty the cells to make room for brood. By 
having strong hives in autumn and spring, early swarms are 
obtained in good seasons, many of which will be ready for super¬ 
ing at the proper time. In bad seasons bees themselves in¬ 
stinctively shrink from swarming, and, generally speaking, few 
colonies are sent off. To swarm bees in such seasons is un¬ 
desirable ; indeed, it would be about as unnatural as it is un¬ 
natural to prevent swarming in good honey seasons. 
3rd, Early and late localities. In some high and cold districts 
there are no orchards oi fruit trees, no early spring flowers. In 
such districts bees are late in commencing to work and breed ; 
swarming there does not commence till June under ordinary 
management. In some districts there is no Heather or autumn 
flowers. The honey season ends with the white Clover about the 
end of July. In the absence of Heather, or, in other words, if 
bees are not taken to the moors in August, swarming should be 
prevented about and after the end of June. My native village 
in Lanarkshire is a cold late place without orchards and Heather, 
but the bee-keepers there remove their bees to the orchards on 
the Clyde in spring, and to the moors in autumn. By so acting 
they get early swarms and have long summers. In that cold 
district swarms are obtained about as early as they are in the 
warm districts of EDgland. This is owing to the excellent mode 
of managing bees in autumn at Carluke. The swarming principle 
is adopted and followed there. In autumn all the bees of the 
honey hives are preserved and united to the stocks, making them 
doubly and trebly strong. Herein we have the secret of great 
success, and an instance of modern bee-keeping unsurpassed for 
worth and excellence. If bee-keepers generally will see that their 
hives are made strong in autumn by additions of bees and proper 
protection, they will soon be proud of their apiaries. 
In cold late d'stricts we approve of covering hives well, and 
gentle stimulating feeding in the spring months. Attention to 
these points and autumn treatment, bee-keeping, even in high- 
lying districts, may be a source of pleasure and profit to all who 
resort to it. 
Looking at the advantage of having hives with young sweet 
combs in them and young queens, and other points which can¬ 
not be had on the non-swarming principle, we feel quite cer¬ 
tain that the teachings of experience will lead most bee-keepers 
at no distant day to adopt and follow the practice now indicated 
—viz., of having strong hives in autumn and early swarms.— 
A. Pettigrew. 
BEES IN WINTER. 
In your August number, page 137, Mr. Pettigrew says :—“ Owing 
to last winter being open and warm, bees, generally speaking, 
consumed most of their stores,” &c. On the same page you give 
an extract from the Bicnenzeit'ung of one of Dr. Dzierzon’s articles, 
thus:—“ The milder the winter is the more complete will be the 
repose of the bees.whilst increasing cold stimulates them 
to breathe more frequently and consume more food.” Can these 
two statements be reconciled, and if not, to which should a be¬ 
ginner give credence ? I have just read up your bee articles for 
the last eighteen months, so did not sooner notice the apparent 
difference of opinion between two acknowledged authorities.— 
East Riding. 
[Dr. Dzierzon, and most scientists, on the principle that all 
saccharine matter is heat-producing and stimulative, adhere to 
the theory that bees in cold weather both require, and actually 
consume, honey in larger quantities than they do in warm, in 
order to keep up the necessary heat of the hive. In proof of this 
they allege the well-known fact that two stocks of bees united in 
the autumn will exist and thrive upon the same quantity of food 
which one stock alone would have required for its sustenance. 
Although this subject resolves itself into a question of chemistry 
chiefly, it is, nevertheless, one for experiment; and we trust that 
some of our able contributors on bee culture will institute ex¬ 
periments forthwith, the present time of year being especially 
favourable for carrying them out.] 
WHAT TO PLANT FOR BEES. 
Many have applied to us to know what plants are best to put in 
small gardens for bees, and therefore we take this opportunity of 
stating what experience has taught us regarding this subject. It 
is a well-known fact that bees do not depend upon the compara¬ 
tively few plants we can tempt them with in our gardens. Their 
supply of food is drawn from more extensive sources—from the 
forest trees, the fields of blossoming corn, Clovers, Buckwheat, 
Mustard, Charlock, or from acres of purple Heather. At the same 
time there are many plants which can be placed in a bee-keeper’s 
garden upon which the bees delight to feed, some of which yield, 
comparatively speakiDg, great quantities of honey and pollen, and 
fill up intervals between the blossoming of various field crops. It 
is likewise always pleasant to see bees working, and to be able to 
walk round our garden and watch the manner in which our little 
favourites load their pollen baskets. There is, moreover, another 
reward which the bee-keeper has who plants for his bees. Many 
of the plants which we have proved are most acceptable to the 
bees are also most remunerative to the planter, and inasmuch as 
he who keeps bees is certain of manifold more fruit from the 
plants than he who has no bees, there is a double inducement to 
take some little trouble to give up some part of our garden space 
to plants specially suitable to the production of pollen or honey. 
There are many flowers which are most acceptable to bees, and 
which give pleasure to the eye only of the bee-master, such as 
Crocuses, Arabis, Wallflowers, &c. Of these we will in this paper 
say nothing, but only treat of such as shall be remunerative both 
ways to the bee-keeper—viz., such as will yield honey from their 
flowers, and be of market value as to their fruit, or of utility for 
kitchen purposes. In another paper we will take in their order of 
flowering some of the plants which are only pleasant to the eye, 
and from which the honey alone is the remuneration obtained. 
Of the former class the Gooseberry should be placed first, as it 
flowers early in the year. Wherever an odd corner can be spared, 
or a border by the side of a walk is available, plant Gooseberry 
bushes. If space be limited, then train them to wire netting 
fastened to stakes. Many bushes can thus be planted in a small 
space, and the fruit from such will be fine, and easily protected, 
where required, from birds. We have grown splendid crops of 
this fruit in seasons when our neighbours have hardly had any. 
With every gleam of sunshine our bees revelled on the tiny blos¬ 
soms and thus set the fruit, and we have always had to thin out 
well; never the annoyance of fruitless bushes. Strawberry blos¬ 
soms are also much frequented by the bees, and where space can 
be allotted to them a bed is much more productive, if near hives, 
than at a distance from them. It is a delightful study to trace the 
marvellous adaptation of insects to the fertilisation of flowering 
plants ; and the Strawberry plant, among many others, is a strik¬ 
ing example of the dependency of flowers on insect life for their 
means of producing fruit in proper season. Those of our readers 
who would like to know more of this subject should purchase the 
plates published under the auspices of the British Bee-Keepers’ 
Association, showing the anatomy of the honey bee and its 
relations to flowering plants. An explanatory key is published 
with the diagrams, and the subject under our consideration is 
thus explained :— 
“ For fertilisation insects are required, since the stigmas are 
ripe long before pollen is produced. Bees especially, walking 
over the bloom seeking honey, carry pollen to the stigmas. Where 
fertilisation takes place the Strawberry developes, but if it fail in 
part we have there a hard, shrunken, and greenish mass. Any 
dish of Strawberries examined will give instances. Without this 
fertilisation no crop appears. To produce a single perfect Straw¬ 
berry from one hundred to double or treble that number of inde¬ 
pendent fertilisations must be accomplished. In the Blackberry 
or Raspberry every little rounded mass (drupel) has had its stigma 
which an insect has visited. How clear it is that our fruit crops 
are aided not a little by the presence of bees ! ” 
Other fruits are produced by aid of the bees in a more or less 
elaborate manner, and with this slight digression from our imme¬ 
diate subject we will proceed to point out other profitable plants 
for small gardens. We do not remember seeing the Radish 
specially noted by any bee-keeper before, but we have found it a 
wonderful favourite with bees. It is our practice to leave a few 
roots in each Radish bed to run to seed, and those who may try 
this plant will be surprised at its attraction for bees, also at the 
enormous amount of seed that will set on each plant. Towards 
autumn the seed vessels if not ripe can be cut off and hung 
in a warm dry place, where the seed will be quickly harvested. 
