July 29, 1880. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
107 
- Crop Prospects. —In some places (says the Agricultural 
Gazette ) the grain crops are quite as bad as they were last year, and 
when this is the case the prospect to the farmers must be blank 
indeed. Much must depend upon the weather, and certainly for some 
days past the sun has done his duty, and vegetation has developed 
with tropical rapidity. The yield will probably be good, and when 
there is plenty of straw there will be plenty of corn. On the other 
hand, over very extensive tracts the crops are thin on the ground, 
and cannot yield an average return, however favourable the circum¬ 
stances. We shall probably have one of the finest Potato crops on 
record. The wet came at the right time, and if, as is probable, we are 
favoured with a fine time during the next two months, we shall not 
suffer from the blight. The quality and the size of tubers now being 
dug are exceptionally fine, and indicate a large crop. We never re¬ 
member to have seen Potato fields and gardens looking more luxuriant 
than they do at present. Mangold is almost an universal failure. A 
large acreage was ploughed up and is now devoted to Swedes. The 
prospects of winter keep are on the whole good, and root land is 
cleaner than it has been for some years past. The good prospect of 
winter keep will tend to make stock sheep dearer. Lambs already 
feel the upward tendency, and other descriptions of stock will follow 
• 
- Essex Bee-keepers’ Association.— A Bee-keepers’ Asso¬ 
ciation for Essex has been formed under the presidency of the Earl 
of Rosslyn. Depots will be established in the principal towns of the 
county, where cottagers will be able to purchase all the newest and 
most approved appliances at a very cheap rate, and shows will be 
held and lectures delivered under the auspices of the Society at 
various places. There has been a great increase in bee-keeping 
throughout the United Kingdom during the past seven years, and 
where cwts. of honey were produced ten years ago tons are now 
gathered-in and sent to market. 
NEW AND OLD COMBS. 
“I want to buy a stock of bees—a first swarm of last year.” 
This oft-expressed desire implies that young combs are better 
than old combs. The best time for changing hives and getting 
them filled with new combs is the swarming season, say from 
the beginning of May till the middle of July ; but this work can 
be well done at a later period of the season, though with less 
advantage and a little extra trouble. In some seasons bees yield 
no harvests of honey, and not unseldom many hives beyond the 
ordinary number for the apiary are worth more to preserve 
for stock than to destroy for honey. Last year bees did not 
swarm well, and generally speaking did not yield a harvest of 
honey. Many hives with old combs were kept for stock with 
the hope that this, the present, would be a honey season, and 
see the apiary swept clean out of old combs. In Cheshire this 
season so far has been unfavourable for bees, though better than 
last. We usually condemn almost all hives with combs two years 
old. Last year this sentence was not carried into execution, and 
some hives in my garden have combs three years old, but the 
executioner is at hand to carry out the law. Most of my bees have 
swarmed this year, and some of the hives have yielded two 
swarms. A few of the weaker with old combs in them are ready to 
produce swarms now. All will be made to swarm, and all the old 
combs will be destroyed. The first three hives already dealt with 
produced swarms twice this season, and a “ turn-out ” from each 
was obtained at the end of three weeks from first swarming. 
Thus we have nine swarms from the three stocks, combs of which 
have been destroyed, and which in their destruction yielded honey 
which has been sold at 1.?. 6 d. per lb—32s. in all. The nine 
swarms have not yet 2 lbs. of sugar each, and some of them have 
their hives nearly filled with combs. All the black-combed hives 
have been or will be treated in the same way. One swarm and 
a turn-out only will be taken from each of the later swarmers, 
and perhaps the honey of the stocks will realise money enough to 
feed the swarms into excellent stocks if the weather render feed¬ 
ing necessary. The reader will see at once that my object is not 
immediate profit, but the filling of the apiary with good and 
unobjectionable stocks containing young combs and queens. 
This practice and process of renewing combs and obtaining young 
queens is simple and intelligible—a little assistance in adverse 
seasons and circumstances. 
The process may be strongly recommended to those who wish 
to change their bees from one kind of hives to another. The 
practice of shifting combs as well bees from one hive to another 
is a bad one and should not be followed. Artificial comb founda¬ 
tions may be employed with advantage if made of pure wax, but 
old or second-hand combs should not be introduced to hives of 
any kind, seeing that sugar is so cheap, and knowing that bees 
can rapidly build combs from sugar syrup. In young combs 
bees thrive and breed better than they do in old ones. In good 
seasons for honey swarms that build their own combs rise to" the 
greatest weights. In young combs foul brood is rare, if ever 
found. In young combs honey is less soiled and pollenised, more 
easily taken—better every way. 
In honey seasons when hives rise in weight beyond GO lbs.— 
some beyond 100 lbs.—we drive the bees out of them in Septem¬ 
ber into empty hives and feed them into stocks. In such seasons 
the hives yield a great harvest of honey, and their bees are sugar- 
fed into excellent stocks, which in no remembered instance have 
disappointed us. Weather and seasons may disappoint the bee- 
master, but his bees if properly managed will in sunshiny 
weather return good measure pressed down for all the attentions 
they may receive.—A. Pettigrew. 
EXPERIENCES WITH COMB FOUNDATION. 
Much that has been written of late, and by some of those who 
are recognised as authorities in apiarian matters, has had a ten¬ 
dency to shake the confidence of bee-keepers who wish to keep 
pace with the march of improvement in our pleasant and profit¬ 
able science. I refer to the use of comb foundations, properly so 
called, not mere guides. On the one hand we have some autho¬ 
ritatively stating, as from experience, the almost certainty of 
failure if any depth beyond 1J or 2 inches be used ; on the other 
we have masters of the science whose experiments suggest at 
least the probability of disaster if certain ingenious appliances, 
such as wires, thread, or wooden bases, be not used to render the 
use of large sheets of foundation safe. Now as your old corre¬ 
spondent “ B. & W.” has given in your last issue the results of 
his “ considerable experience with comb foundation for the 
last three seasons,” I trust you will allow me to give mine for 
the same period, and I venture to think my experience not 
inconsiderable. 
My number of Langstroth hives has been from twenty to thirty 
•—at present thirty-two ; the frames 17^ by 8f, and ten frames to 
each box. Before 1878 I was infected with the idea, of which I 
would fain cure “ B. & W.,” that anything beyond 2 inches would 
be dangerous, and for seven previous years I limited my bee help 
to that extent only, not indeed with invariable success as to 
straight combs, but with the invariable production of super¬ 
abundance of drones, with proportionately diminished produce of 
more desirable supers. In 1878 I had my first trial with deeper 
foundations. Mr. Raitt had then imported his first machine, which 
turned out sheets 4^ inches deep. Determined to give it a fair 
trial, I ordered 12 lbs., which contained upwards of a hundred 
sheets, and I considered it the best investment I ever made ; two- 
thirds of the weight were thin for supers; and in six weeks, the 
whole period that season of honey-gathering weather, I took 
upwards of 900 lbs. of super comb honey. I bore testimony to 
the value of foundation in an autumn number of the “ British 
Bee Journal” of that year. In 1879 Mr. Raitt had procured his 
larger machine, and I ordered a large supply of foundations 16 by 8^. 
The sheets were so thin that it was with no slight apprehension 
I began to use them, but in the issue with even a better result 
than my experience of 1878 as to the safety of trusting foundation 
pure and simple, for in that year I had one breakdown and not 
one since, nor a crooked comb, nor a curled corner, although the 
numbers used by me up to this must far exceed two hundred, 
as my purchases have reached nearly 40 lbs. 'This season a freak 
of my bees, unique in my experience, enabled me to put founda¬ 
tion to as severe a test as it is ever likely to be subjected to. Last 
month, one day two swarms arose simultaneously and pitched 
together on one tree, forming a very large swarm. I had scarcely 
hived them in a large skep when a third swarm out of a 20-inch 
skep rose and settled on the spot from which I had shaken the 
other two. I hived it and placed it about 2 feet from the other 
under the tree to let the stragglers be gathered in, but when I 
came to remove them in the evening I found the first skep tenant¬ 
less, and the whole three swarms in one hive, making a weight of 
bees but a few ounces under 14 lbs. This huge swarm I put into 
a Langstroth ten-frame box furnished with six sheets of founda¬ 
tion and four perfected combs, and for results I had in forty- 
eight hours the six nearly as perfect combs as the four, without a 
w r ave or curl. Next day 1 without hesitation gave to a strong 
swarm nine frames foundation and one comb for immediate con¬ 
venience of the queen, and with like success. Having had such 
experience in the use of this invaluable auxiliary to successful 
bee-keeping, I have felt naturally impatient that your correspon- 
