534 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c December r, im 
well to get the trees in at once at the proper distances by digging or 
trenching large holes, and leaving the trenching of the space between 
to be carried out at some future time. The disturbance of the soil 
about them will be a great gain by the decomposition of the freshly 
turned ground ; and whatever is needed to improve its texture can be 
readily applied, whether it be clay to render sandy shallow soil more 
tenacious and moisture-holding, or road scrapings, old mortar rubbish 
or ashes, to render heavy and wet soils more open. 
Although Gooseberries, Currants, and Raspberries are allowed to 
stand many years on the same ground, even after they have ceased 
to afford full crops of large fruits, it is not a good practice, as fresh 
plantations are always more profitable, and a thorough system of 
rotation of crops should be carried out in the fruit department as in 
other departments of the garden. Where plantations of the above 
are giving indications of being worn out by the decay of the bushes 
wholly or in part, or from affording indifferent crops, fresh plan¬ 
tations should at once be formed, and when these come into bearing 
equal to the demand the old may be destroyed. 
FRUIT HOUSES. 
Pines .—During this and the following month the plants will re¬ 
quire considerable time and attention in the several departments. 
The temperature in the sucker pit should be 55 <> , in the successional 
pit 60°, and in the fruiting house 70° at night, which under very 
adverse circumstances may be allowed to fall a few degrees. In the 
fruiting house the temperature must be raised 5° to 10° higher in the 
day, being guided by external influences ; but in the other compart¬ 
ments a similar rise will not be necessary, except in the case of 
successionals which are expected to show fruit, when they should 
have the temperature raised as indicated for fruiting plants. Great 
care will be needed in watering, particularly in the case of plants 
plunged in beds where there is but slight bottom heat, as under such 
conditions plants in small or moderate-sized pots will not require 
much water, and should only be given when absolutely necessary, 
and then in a tepid state. 
FLOWER GARDEN. 
Contemplated alterations in lawns and pleasure grounds should be 
carried out as long as the weather continues mild, completing those 
sufficiently advanced by laying the turf; but if the weather be frosty 
the groundwork should be proceeded with, deferring the turfing 
until mild weather. If there is to be any re-arrangement—replanting 
trees and shrubs—it is desirable to commence in a systematic manner 
the groundwork being completed before any planting takes place. 
The greatest mistake in planting is striving too much to produce an 
effect at once, as in a very few years the shrubs become so crowded 
that a thinning of one-half has to be effected, which may spoil the 
whole of the arrangements. The position of each specimen, or those 
that are to remain as such, should be arranged, and the whole of 
these planted first, the spaces being then filled in any manner cal¬ 
culated to produce a pleasing variety for present effect; only it is 
undesirable to employ tall-growing trees, which are much better 
planted in the arboretum or for grouping in park scenery. Still, many 
of the Conifer® and others that develope into large trees are very 
beautiful in a young state, and they are used in ornamental borders. 
In planting shrubberies it is well to make a departure from the pre¬ 
vailing fashion of late years of giving preference to evergreens to 
the almost total exclusion of flowering deciduous shrubs, some of 
which are very beautiful. 
Except the almost constant work of sweeping and rolling little 
remains to be done in this department at present. Any gaps in Box 
edgings should now be made good. Where the soil is suitable for 
the growth of Box it is unrivalled as an edging plant, but in sandy 
soils or those lacking calcareous matter it often turns brown, which 
greatly detracts from its appearance. Where this is the case the 
edgings will be greatly improved in colour by working in a good 
quantity of chalk when relaying. Christmas Roses are much appre¬ 
ciated and in great request for cutting. Handlights placed over them 
will greatly assist the flowers and improve their colour. There is 
always great risk in digging herbaceous borders, especially at this 
season, unless the positions of bulbs and plants- are indicated by 
stout hard wooden pegs ; but, except in the case of such things as are 
well known, it adds much to the interest of plants to have them 
properly named. Bad weather will afford an opportunity of pro¬ 
viding pegs or labels for such plants as require them renewed. The 
borders should now be mulched with well-decayed manure, leaf soil, 
or the reduced refuse from the rubbish heap, which will not only 
enrich the soil but form a suitable protection against the severity of 
the weather. Keep a sharp look-out against the depredations of mice 
amongst bulbs. 
Ere winter sets in in earnest plants of doubtful hardiness should 
receive the needful protection. Some dry leaves placed about their 
crowns and some fern over, with a branch or two of Laurel or Spruce 
to prevent their blowing about, form a good protection for Bambusas, 
New Zealand Flax, Chamrerops Fortunei, Pampas Grass, and many 
others ; and those of doubtful hardiness against walls should have 
the roots similarly protected, affording in addition to this for Mag¬ 
nolias or Ceanothuses a double covering of mats tacked in front of the 
trees in severe weather. Roses of the tender kinds against walls 
may be treated similarly. Beds of Tea Roses must either now be 
lifted and laid in a pit to which protection can be given in severe 
weather, and from which they can be transferred in spring to the 
quarters for blooming, or they may be left in the beds protected 
with a good .thickness of leaves kept from blowing about by some 
litter or fern, and in severe weather some dry hay or fern woven in 
about the heads will materially assist them to w-ithstand sharp frosts. 
Hybrid Perpetuals should be well mulched over the roots with littery 
manure, and with this they are comparatively safe, as with the roots 
protected they will bear more cold than those not so protected, and 
in the case of dwarfs they will start from the base if the tops are cut 
off to the line of mulching. 
. . i ___ . . : _, , - kSSg 
m 
I|L V ; 
m 
HE BEE-KEEPER. I 
THE ART OF BEE-KEEPING.—No. 4. 
(Continued from page 511.) 
THE QUEEN BEE. 
While a worker bee is developed from the egg in twenty-one 
days, a queen takes only sixteen days—viz., three days in the egg, 
five as a larva, and eight in the sealed state. What makes this dif¬ 
ference remarkable is the fact that the eggs from which both are 
developed are originally alike — i.e, the same egg may produce 
either a worker or a queen, according to the way the bees treat the 
larva that hatches from it. No one has yet solved the mystery in 
which this transformation is enveloped. All we do know is, that 
the larva intended for a queen is furnished with an excessive quan¬ 
tity of rich food called royal jelly, and provided with a much larger 
cell than that of a worker, and which is placed in a perpendicular 
instead of a horizontal position. It is a knowledge of this remark¬ 
able power possessed by the bees that enables the bee-keeper to have 
queens raised at will. Usually queens are raised only when swarm- 
iug is intended, or the old queen becomes nearly exhausted, or meets 
with sudden death. But if queens are wanted at any time the bee¬ 
keeper may almost invariably cause a number of them to be raised 
by simply removing the old queen. In this case the bees generally 
select young larvee to be transformed into queens, and thus the latter 
may be ready to hatch in twelve, or even ten, days from the time of 
removal of the old queen. As, under such circumstances, the first 
hatched princes-s usually destroys all her rivals before they issue 
from their cells, the bee-keeper who desires to save more than one 
must be careful either to remove, or cage in wirecloth, such cells as 
he wishes to make use of, and that about the ninth or tenth day. 
Such sealed cells may be given to other stocks having no queens, as 
when artificial swarms are made, and thus one stock may do all the 
queen-rearing needed in even a rather large apiary. 
The knowledge of these facts renders artificial swarming possible, 
since the bees left in a stock from which a queen and swarm have 
been taken will either raise a new queen for themselves, or accept a 
royal cell reared in another stock. Artificial swarming was prac¬ 
tised ages ago by the natives of the eastern Mediterranean shores, 
though the knowledge of how both stocks came to have queens was 
not possessed by them. In our own country it does not appear to 
have been practised before the end of last century, but followed the 
discoveries of Shirach and Huber already referred to. Bonner 
indeed tells us he practised it even before he heard of Shirach’s dis¬ 
covery. But his practice was in some respects faulty; and this is not 
