250 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ September 9, 1880. 
the old school of large straw hives, and was successful beyond his 
neighbours. Last year he adopted new ideas, and bought some 
bar-frame stocks and hives, and some comb foundations. In every 
trial this year with artificial foundations he failed, and succeeded 
beyond expectation with natural comb. “ Indeed,” he said, “ I 
am taking all the combs out of the bar-frame hives and fixing 
them in straw hives.” “How can you do that?” he was asked. 
“ I cut off with a sharp knife all the cells of the old combs down 
to their foundations ; and thus pared down to their foundations 
they are fitted into the straw hives, and the bees adopt them at 
once and erect new cells in the places of the old cells.” “ But surely 
you do not use such old foundations in supering.” “ Oh no, only 
for brood comb, and it answers first-rate.” This is novel enough, 
certainly, and if found by experiment to be of much value will 
go a long way to prove that new artificial foundations will become 
of considerable importance in apiculture. Might not the British 
Bee-keepers’ Association render important service to apiculture 
by seeking and publishing evidence for and against new and old 
practices in bee-keeping ? 
Has the world been enriched at all by the discovery of the old 
lady in the Highlands of Scotland ? She found that bees eat 
barley bannocks soaked in honey, and others followed her practice 
by feeding their bees with pea-meal cakes and candy cakes made 
of meal, sugar, and water, believing the meal or flour in the 
cakes caused the queens of hives to commence laying earlier in 
spring, and also recommence laying in autumn after the breeding 
season had passed. This idea of meal food was widely published 
at the time, and many bee-keepers resolved to try the food by 
way of experiment. Have any or many of the readers of this 
Journal found meal food of advantage to bees ? In my apiary I 
have tried this food for two or three years without any apparent 
advantage whatever. Long before one writer had recommended 
pea-meal dough to be plastered on the combs of hives in spring, 
and predicted advantages from it, I had tried it by putting the 
meal on combs and placing them on the boards inside the hives. 
I found the bees taking part of the meal dough, but I could not 
discover any advantage derived from so doing. The bees that 
did not have meal food either inside or outside their hives were 
just as healthy and prosperous and swarmed as early as those 
that had meal. Though bees in spring readily work on pea-meal 
and flour, and carry a large quantity into their hives, we have 
made no accurate experiments with them in order to estimate 
their proper value to the bees, or how they are used. Evidently 
most pollen and meal are required when breeding is going on in 
hives, and as evidently far too much is carried into some hives, 
for we often find one-third of the cells in the centre of hives half 
filled and thus rendered useless by pollen and meal. Bees in 
hives with little pollen in them thrive faster, other things being 
equal. 
That the adult bees themselves eat pollen was well asserted and 
supported by Mr. Raitt some two years ago. In the excrements 
of bees he found portions of pollen grains, and also that the colour 
of the meal or pollen eaten determined the colour of the excre¬ 
ments. Nothing, it appears to me, could be more convincing 
than this evidence. How much or how little pollen is eaten by 
adult bees is a question yet unsettled. Mr. Raitt stated at the 
same time that the bees on eating meal overfed their queens with 
half-digested food from their own stomachs, and thus caused the 
queen to lay eggs at an untimely season. This was a new idea 
and an extraordinary one. Doubtless Mr. Raitt meant abundant 
feeding instead of over-feeding, for over-feeding would do harm 
instead of good ; but this question of over or abundant feeding of 
queens cannot be proven, and therefore we need not dwell on it. 
Queens are seldom straitened for want of food—either honey 
or pollen—even when their subjects are threatened with starva¬ 
tion. Bees in inclement weather or when they anticipate hard 
times almost invariably stop breeding, the combs become empty, 
prosperity is checked. Does this happen from want of food or 
want of eggs? My opinion is that the queen being well fed 
cannot stop laying eggs in the egg season, but the bees will not 
hatch them. Ample evidence of this may be noticed in both large 
and small apiaries when feeding is resorted to during severe 
weather. Bees artificially fed during the worst weather in spring, 
summer, and autumn never cease to set and hatch eggs, whilst the 
hives when the bees are unfed become empty of brood. The 
administration of common artificial food—viz., sugar and water, 
promotes heat and contentment and brood-rearing in all hives 
without the admixture of meal. During the late hot weather bees 
in this locality did not gather honey enough to keep them, and 
the brood-rearing naturally came to an end about the beginning 
of August; but the bees artificially fed have continued to rear 
brood through August, and eggs are being set now during this 
first week of September. The question of the unfertility of bees 
during inclement summer weather is a most interesting and im¬ 
portant one. It will be well if the bee-keeping readers of this 
Journal succeed by artificial treatment in getting a large hatch of 
brood in every hive during the present month.—A. Bettigrew. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Ducks Losing Feathers (E. T. E .).—They are too nourishingly fed. Give 
them soft food only, equal portions of barley meal and bran. 
Converting Stocks in Skeps into Stocks in Frame Hives (J. B.). 
—The work of converting your apiary into one of frame hives had better be 
undertaken now. Any large skep which has a good population may be made 
into a moveable comb stock, but if the populations are thin it will be better to 
unite two into one at the time you take the honey. In the latter case gradually 
bring the stocks side by side, moving each about a yard daily, and then drive 
both lots into one skep. Cut out the honeycombs, and appropriate all that it is 
profitable to take, fixing the brood into the frames of the new hive by tapes. If 
you have not comb enough to completely furnish the frames give if possible 
foundation in the empty ones. Put your combs and frames in order, and then 
add the driven bees. Feed them until they are amply supplied for the winter. 
By this plan you save all your bees and brood, the latter being of great value, as 
it will furnish the bees that will survive till far into next spring. Your honey 
also will be secured as completely as you like to take it, while sugar becomes its 
perfectly sufficient substitute. 
Hives {Idem ).—The Cheshire hive can be had of Messrs. Neighbour, Regent 
Street. Mr. Green, Rainham, Kent, would be able to supply you with the 
description of hive to which your latter question applies. Look into any good 
modern handbook, and read “ Uniting” and “Transferring,” and consult it and 
our advertising columns. 
METEOROLOGICAL OBSERVATIONS. 
CAMDEN SQUARE, LONDON. 
Lat. 51°32'40" N.; Long.0°8'0'' W.; Altitude,111 feet. 
DATE. 
9 A.M. 
IN THE DAY. 
Rain. 
1880. 
August. 
Sept. 
Barome¬ 
ter at 32° 
and Sea 
Level 
Hygrome¬ 
ter. 
Direction 
of Wind. 
Temp, of 
Soil at 
1 foot. 
Shade Tem¬ 
perature. 
Radiation 
Temperature. 
Dry. 
Wet. 
Max. 
Min. 
In 
snn. 
On 
grass. 
Inches. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
deg. 
In. 
Sun. 29 
30.060 
64.0 
60.4 
N.E. 
63.7 
77.0 
56.7 
124.0 
53.3 
_ 
Mon. 3') 
29.946 
67.1 
62.0 
N. 
64.0 
71.7 
58.4 
96.6 
56.6 
_ 
Tues. 31 
30.031 
64.0 
60.8 
N. 
63.1 
78.6 
55.1 
122.3 
50.4 
_ 
Wed. 1 
30.242 
67.0 
62.0 
N. 
63.6 
74.6 
54.2 
117.9 
49.8 
_ 
Thurs. 2 
30.354 
66.7 
62.9 
W. 
64.0 
80.7 
59.3 
125.4 
56.4 
— 
Friday 3 
30.265 
65.8 
63.6 
N. 
64.6 
83.3 
58.4 
118.9 
54.3 
— 
Satur. 4 
30.024 
73.1 
67.4 
N. 
64.6 
83.3 
58.8 
129.8 
53.3 
— 
Means. 
30.131 
66.8 
62.7 
63.9 
78.4 
57.2 
119.2 
53.4 
— 
REMARKS. 
29th—Fine, bright, pleasant day ; distant thunderstorms in evening and night 
30th.—Fine and bright early, cloudy day. 
31st.—Fine pleasant day. 
1st.—Fog in early morning, fine bright day. 
2nd.—Fine, bright, hot day, scarcely a breath of wind. 
3rd.—Fine, bright, and very hot. 
4th.—Fine and bright, the hottest day this year. 
The weather during the week was fine and bright with a continued absence 
of rain ; the temperature was high, especially during the last few days, and all 
the thermometric means are above those of last week with the exception of the 
minimum on grass. The barometer readings were also high.—G. J. SYMONS. 
COVENT GARDEN MARKET.— SEPTEMBER 8. 
WE have little'to note this week, large supplies of Channel Island'Grapes 
and French Pears’reaching us, the latter realising good prices. Kent Cobs and 
Filberts are short at increased value. 
FRUIT. 
s. d. s. d. 
Apples. J sieve 2 6 to 4 6 
Apricots. box 0 0 0 0 
Cherries. ^lb. 0 0 0 0 
Chestnuts. bushel 12 0 16 0 
Figs. dozen 0 6 10 
Filberts. Pit. 1 3 16 
Cobs. Vlti 1 3 16 
Gooseberries .... j sieve 0 0 0 0 
Grapes . ftb 0 9 3 0 
Lemons. lfM00 12 0 18 0 
s. d. s. d. 
Artichokes. dozen 2 0to4 0 
Asparagus. bundle 0 0 0 0 
Beans, Kidney .... V tt>. 0 0 0 6 
Beet, Red. dozen 10 2 0 
Broccoli. bundle 0 9 16 
Brussels Sprouts.. J sieve 0 0 0 0 
Cabbage. dozen 0 6 10 
Carrots. bunch 0 4 0 6 
Capsicums. ty 100 1 6 2 0 
Cauliflowers. dozen 0 0 3 6 
Celery . bundle 16 2 0 
Coleworts_doz. bunches 2 0 4 0 
Cucumbers. each 0 4 0 6 
Endive. dozen 10 2 0 
Fennel. bunch 0 3 0 0 
Garlic . W fb. 0 6 0 0 
Herbs . bunch o 2 0 0 
Leeks_: . bunch 0 0 4 
s. d. s. d. 
Melons . each 2 0to4 o 
Nectarines. dozen 2 0 8 0 
Oranges . ^ 100 4 0 12 o 
Peaches . dozen 3 0 10 o 
Pears, kitchen .. dozen 0 0 o o 
dessert. dozen 2 0 3 o 
Pine Apples .... fB 1 0 3 o 
Plums . } sieve 16 So 
Walnuts . bushel 0 0 On 
ditto . $* 100 0 0 0 
s. d. s. d. 
Mushrooms . dozen 1 Oto 1 6 
Mustard & Cress .. punnet 0 2 0 3 
Onions. bushel 3 6 6 0 
pickling. quart 0 0 0 9 
Parsley. doz. bunches 6 0 0 0 
Parsnips. dozen 10 2 0 
Peas . quart 0 9 10 
Potatoes. bushel 3 9 4 0 
Kidney. bushel 4 0 o o 
Radishes.... doz.bunches 16 2 6 
Rhubarb. bundle 0 4 0 0 
Salsafy. bundle 10 0 0 
Scorzonera '. bundle 16 0 0 
Seakale . basket 0 0 0 0 
Shallots . o 3 0 0 
Spinach . bushel 3 0 0 0 
Turnips. bunch 0 4 0 0 
Vegetable Marrows each 0 2 o 0 
