JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 41 
he retained to the last. He was the author of the ‘ Manual of 
Bee-keeping,’ which has now attained its third edition. He was 
the writer of the article 1 Bee ’ in the last edition of the ‘ Ency¬ 
clopaedia Britannica ; ’ also, in 1875, of a pamphlet entitled 'The 
Cottage Frame Hive,’ specially written for the use of cottagers. 
He was for several years on the staff of the Journal of Horticul¬ 
ture , and also on that of the Gardeners' Chronicle , and was a 
constant correspondent to both British and American apicultural 
magazines. Many contributions from his pen will be found in the 
earlier volumes of the Journal. The paper which he read at the 
Conversazione on April 14. on ‘ The Future of British Bee-keeping,’ 
will be fresh in the recollection of our readers. Mr. Hunter was 
selected by the Committee of the British Bee-keepers’ Asso¬ 
ciation, together with Mr. Cheshire, to compile the ‘Handbook 
for Cottagers.’ 
“At the South Kensington Show in 1878 Mr. Hunter was 
awarded a silver medal for a very fine collection of microscopical 
objects illustrating the natural history of the honey bee. 
“ He was a member of the Quekett Microscopical Club of 
London, and also of that in Ealing ; and on October 25, 1878, he 
read a most interesting paper on ' The Queen Bee, with especial 
reference to the Fertilisation of her Eggs.’ This paper was pub¬ 
lished in the Journal of the Quekett Club. He was also for many 
years a member of the Entomological Society. 
“ Mr. Hunter’s exertions and spirits were always in excess of 
his strength. He had been in very delicate health for many years, 
and succumbed after an attack of pleurisy, culminating in con¬ 
gestion of the lungs, of less than a fortnight’s duration, at his 
residence at Ealing, on Sunday, the 27th June. His death will 
be a very great loss to the cause of bee culture and science in 
general.” 
EXPERIMENTS WITH FOUNDATION. 
The proverb “ Time tries all ” contains more than a little 
wisdom, and in order that all I have done with comb foundation 
might have that testing that time alone can give, I have remained 
silent for a week or two, but now proceed to conclude and sum¬ 
marise an account of the results obtained. 
Mr. Jones, well known amongst apiarians as our Canadian 
cousin, who has with great pluck and energy secured, during 
travels undertaken for the express purpose, a large number of 
Cyprian and Holy Land bees, visited ms a few days since in com¬ 
pany with Mr. Hooker of Sevenoaks. Mr. Jones expressed very 
strongly his delight at the perfection of the combs produced, and 
at the simplicity of the means used, making wired foundation, 
even if it worked perfectly, unnecessary and uncalled for ; but he 
quarrelled with the name “ rakes,” and there and then we agreed 
to the suggestion of my visitors that these wires should hence¬ 
forward be called Cheshire’s Foundation Fixers. 
The fixers, up to the date of my last notes (page 425 of your 
last volume), had always so held the foundation that perfect combs 
made in stocks had been produced, and the experiments with 
swarms remained to be tried. I filled eight frames with founda¬ 
tion from top to bottom and end to end, did not wax-in any of 
the sheets, and gave to some five and to other six fixers. The 
swarm, a large one, hung principally on four combs. No sagging 
whatever occurred, but one comb bent slightly over for about 
1^ inch at the end, so that its edge for this length was not fixed 
quite in the middle of the top bar. Another swarm has been tried, 
receiving six sheets of foundation held by the fixers, and two of 
wired foundation. The first six sheets are now perfect combs ; 
one sheet of wired foundation is waved or buckled a good deal at 
its lower part, the other is perfect. My conclusions are these :—• 
With stocks the fixers are alone quite sufficient; with swarms it 
is wiser to wax to the top bar as well as use the fixers. That 
foundation should in no case expend quite to the bottom bar. I 
brought my sheets into contact with it. in order that the smallest 
stretching might make itself apparent, but the bees object; they 
are slow in finishing the lowest cells, and often nibble for them¬ 
selves passages through the foundation above the bottom bar. It 
is clear also thatthe absolute filling of the frame with comb would 
oblige the queen, to her great risk during an examination, to con¬ 
tinually pass from comb to comb on the outside of the frame. 
Although, then, the fixers admit of filling the frame, it is unwise 
to take advantage of it. A bare quarter inch beneath and at the 
ends should be left. The fixers must also be put into place by 
the assistance of the wood block as explained in the issue of May 
27th, for if the pin be clearly and at once pierced into the sheet 
it holds with wonderful firmness, but if it be twisted about after¬ 
wards it enlarges the hole and loses its grip. When the sheet is 
given the first effort of the bees is to fix the pins, building around 
them little struts of wax ; but if a tiny hole be made near to the 
pin the bee3 on the opposite side of the sheet seem to communi¬ 
cate through it and dig away the wax around the pin until a hole 
nearly half an inch in diameter is made, it would appear with the 
idea of removing what they regard as an obstruction. All this 
will show the importance of fixing at once the foundation in its 
proper place. The pertinacity with which the bees build drone 
comb, cut out often by the vexed bee-keeper to be immediately 
replaced by more, many know to their chagrin ; while the loss 
this involves, many, though a less number, understand. Here, how¬ 
ever, we have the perfect cure for the evil, and a power of rapidly 
building up stocks with faultless comb which the old jog-trot bee¬ 
keepers find it hard to believe and impossible to realise. I am 
fully convinced that the proper, intelligent use of foundation in 
full size will double the produce and quadruple the pleasure to be 
got out of any apiary. 
But it may be that these fixers will be useful, not only in pre¬ 
venting sagging and in securing perfect flatness in the comb, but 
in making it possible for new comb to travel. Last year at South 
Kensington was exhibited a sheet of foundation from Alsace, with 
a thin board between its faces. This foundation on wood has 
been tried in America and pronounced a partial if not a total 
failure. Mr. A. J. Root of Ohio thus speaks of it in his useful 
“A B C of Bee Culture ”—“In our apiary I have beautiful combs 
built on thin wood ; but as the bottom of the ceils is flat they 
are compelled to use wax to fill out the interstices, and the value 
of this surplus wax, it seems to me, throws the wood base entirely 
out of the question.” Mr. Abbott, however, has been following out 
the idea of trying flat-bottomed cells on thin pine boards, and has 
succeeded in getting some of these built out perfectly, so that he is 
sanguine of success, which I see nothing to prevent, since bees can 
be made with a little management to build brood or store cells even 
on the top of sealed honey cells. I have more than one specimen 
now of comb, thus having three cells in cross section, two of honey, 
and one of brood. Should he succeed these combs would admit 
of any roughness during transit; but pending this result it will be 
interesting to state that, having to take a stock of bees in a frame 
hive to Peterborough, I put into the stock on a Monday morning 
a full-sized sheet of foundation, using my fixers. On Tuesday 
morning the hive had three distinct journeys by cab and two by 
rail, while the bees were shut up for twelve hours. The founda¬ 
tion converted into comb arrived in perfect order, and has made 
the return journey without injury. The continuance of the wires 
in their position will cause the loss of less than twenty cells in all. 
I have been requested to state some particulars about size of 
wire, &c., and so add that the wire I used is best quality, No. 18 
tinned wire, upon which pins are soldered by their heads at in¬ 
tervals of 1|- inch. That the pins are afterwards cut down to 
half an inch in length, and the wire turned to a right angle top 
and bottom so as to just slip over top and bottom bar. These fixers 
with the boards can be had, I believe, of Messrs. Neighbour. 
Let me here say that foundation for hives should be thick, and 
that thin sheet, such as is suitable for supers, would fail if treated 
as described. 
Not only have I had the pleasure of showing these matters to 
Mr. Hooker, but to Mr. Cowan also, who had good opportunity of 
seeing the destruction of brood produced by wired foundation. I 
mention this that in the mouths or two or three witnesses every 
word may be established. The latter gentleman gives us a new 
suggestion by saying in a letter to myself, “ I have given your 
‘foundation fixers’ a good trial and find them most effectual. I 
had a lot of pieces of foundation in strips about 8 inches wide. 
I cut their sides parallel, squaring the ends, and fastened them into 
a frame with your fixers. They are all joined together and worked 
out, so now I shall not throw away any scraps.”—F rank R. 
Cheshire, Avenue House, Acton , W. 
PIPING QUEENS. 
I AM much obliged by Mr. Pettigrew’s reply to my letter in 
the Journal of the 17th inst., and am now in a position to give 
further information regarding the two young queens. The one 
Mr. Pettigrew would term the “ barking queen ” has been duly 
fertilised, and three of the frames now contain a large quantity 
of sealed brood, &c. ; but unfortunately the “piping queen,” and 
consequently the older and the one to which most interest would 
attach, has been lost. I made no mistake as to the queen that 
left the hive, as she alighted on the ground in front of the hive, 
and I had a good opportunity of observing her. Mr. Pettigrew 
in his book states, “ The eggs of virgin or unmated queens are 
male in character,” but I take it this does not imply that a 
virgin queen can become a breeder of drones. Will Mr. Pettigrew 
inform me if I am correct ?—M. H. Matthews. 
[In answer to the question at the close of the letter above, I 
have to say that virgin or unmated queens are all drone-breeders. 
