December 16, 1880. ] JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 565 
report of the Council, which stated that during the present year the 
number of Governors and membei's had been increased by 153, the total 
number now being 8082. The Carlisle meeting had been remarkably 
successful, notwithstanding the very unfavourable weather experi¬ 
enced during the last three days ; and, although the receipts were 
not sufficient to cover the expenditure, the Council were enabled to 
announce that the deficit would not entail any further diminution of 
the funded capital of the Society, as it could be covered by the surplus 
ordinary income of the year. The preparations for the Derby meet¬ 
ing next year, which the Council had decided should commence on 
TV ednesday, July 13th, and close on the following Monday evening, 
were well in hand. The Council had deemed it advisable to restrict 
henceforth the amount offered as prizes for live stock by the Society 
itself to a maximum of £3000. The Local Committee proposed to 
liberally supplement the Society’s prize sheet. The Council had under 
their consideration the very serious outbreak of sheep-rot which 
caused so much mortality amongst the flocks of the country during 
the year, and have instituted a practical as well as a scientific inves¬ 
tigation into the whole subject. They regretted to observe that foot- 
and-mouth disease is again prevalent in several districts, after an 
almost complete immunity from the disease for nearly two years. 
With reference to pleuro-pneumonia, the Council has the satisfaction 
of reporting that a considerable diminution in the number of cases, as 
compared with last year, has been effected by the measures adopted 
for its extermination. 
HEATHER HONEY. 
( Continued from page 473.) 
It is not easy to give directions for obtaining the best results 
in Heather honey that shall be strictly applicable to every season 
and district. In purely highland regions the Clover blooms so 
late that there is really no interval between the two harvests ; 
but generally it is found that there is an interval of about a fort¬ 
night, unless where the Limes bloom so late as to fill the gap. In 
all cases, however, the result of the earlier harvest is, except 
where the extractor is kept at work, to fill up the brood combs to 
the almost total exclusion of the queen from egg-laying. The 
interval, where such exists, is usually marked by the massacre of 
the drones—an intimation that the bees are beginning to fear the 
approach of times of scarcity, and that brood-rearing is no longer 
persevered in. To guard against this, means must be taken to 
ensure that no such feeling of scarcity shall exist. The gap, where 
it exists, must be tided over by steady but slow feeding. This 
feeding may not necessarily be of an extraneous nature, as the 
mere uncapping of portions of the sealed stores in the brood nest 
from day to day will admirably serve the purpose. It is perhaps 
not generally known that this uncapping of sealed stores is really 
equal to the best stimulative feeding ; for it is the habit of the 
bees to remove all honey from cells thus damaged by the knife, 
and of course in doing so they are really being compelled to feed. 
If feeding be otherwise necessary it should be by means of honey 
only, so as to avoid the slightest suspicion of having sugar syrup 
mixed with the honey either of the brood combs or the supers, 
until at least the work of depriving is over for the season. 
Besides securing that, either from natural or artificial sources, 
there shall be no period of felt-scarcity between the earlier and 
later harvests, it will be necessary to provide abundance of breed¬ 
ing room during the whole course of the season. Where hives are 
run for the extractor this is of course abundantly provided for; 
but where supers are being filled there is, as a rule, no such pro¬ 
vision made after the supers are once in their place. The 
difficulty of removing supers for the purpose of manipulating the 
frames and the danger of crushing bees in replacing them deter 
most bee-keepers from the operation. But I think our supers 
can be so made that they can be removed and replaced almost as 
easily as a single frame. Instead of having our super trays con¬ 
structed to hold two and even three rows of sections, they may be 
made to hold only one row, and instead of wooden laths their 
bottoms may be of angle tin, thus ensuring their being easily 
handled and a minimum of propolising. Such cases of sections 
will, besides, admit of our giving the bees super room more 
gradually, which is a great advantage early in the season. These 
trays being so placed that the sections run crosswise to the frames, 
it is evident that by removing any one of them a certain number of 
frames below may be reached without disturbing the other trays. 
Whether with ease or difficulty, however, we may consider it 
absolutely necessary to obtain access from time to time to the 
frames below. Thus the directions I have formerly given as to 
“ spreading the brood ” may be continued all through the Clover 
season and up to the advent of the Heather. When this time 
comes it will be sufficient to secure that the whole body of the 
hive is filled with brood and eggs, so as to compel the bees to store 
the Heather honey almost entirely in the supers or upper storey. 
Such may be regarded as general directions, but there are other 
ways of attaining large results in Heather honey. 
Where several stocks are kept it may, for instance, be found 
very profitable to set aside certain hives especially for this purpose. 
These might, when the Heather comes in bloom, be greatly 
strengthened by having all frames with honey only removed, 
their places being filled with comb of brood from other hives 
stimulated for the purpose ; or swarms may be added to them 
where such can be procured, or those that stand side by side 
may be united, bees and brood. In any case the golden rule of 
bee-keeping must now be particularly observed—“ Keep all your 
stocks strong.” 
When I kept bees in the low country I was in the habit of 
removing them to the moors, but not having taken any special 
care to secure an overflowing population I did not reap any 
advantage to compensate for the trouble. Were I in such circum¬ 
stances again I should, before removing them, drive or shake all 
the bees out of my weaker hives, add the brood to the others, carry 
them to the moors, and then run in the driven bees, dividing them 
according to the strength of the stocks removed. All unfinished 
supers would be piled on these hives, and empty ones added only 
if there were bees enough to crowd them : or I would, instead 
of supers, place on some hives an upper storey filled with frames 
having foundation only. In this way probably the greatest 
weight of Heather honey might be secured, such frames being 
afterwards squeezed out; for they would contain neither brood nor 
pollen, and extracting Heather honey once sealed is beyond the 
power of any machine yet made. 
Friend Paterson of Struan has obtained excellent results from 
swarms purchased from the lowlands. These, being earlier than 
his own, have time to fill their hives with brood before the 
Heather blooms. And it may be worth the consideration of high¬ 
land kee-keepers whether it would not be most profitable to work 
their own stocks as far as possible on the non-swarming system, 
and purchase swarms for increase. Mr. Paterson obviates the 
late-swarming difficulty in a rather ingenious way. His hives 
when in full strength contain about sixteen large frames. These 
throw large swarms, which he puts into hives contracted to ten 
frames or so, and at once cuts out royal cells, giving a laying 
queen if possible to the parent stock. Ilis swarms crowding these 
smaller hives are ready for immediate supering, and the parent 
stock so rapidly recovers that it, too, is in the best of condition 
when the Heather comes on. As there are few districts in our 
country where it is not possible to remove bees to the Heather, 
I venture to hope that this subject may be widely taken up ; and 
if a few of those who have had more experience of it than myself 
would come forward and state the results of such experience, 
it would be the easier to frame a code of rules bearing on the 
matter.— William Baitt, Blairgonrie. 
COMB DESTROYERS. 
Waxmoths, Galleridae, Wax Mite.— Upon turning up a 
skep it is quite usual to find upon that part of it which rests upon 
the floorboard a few small whitish caterpillars about two-thirds of 
an inch in length ; these are the larvre of wax moths, of which 
not unfrequently more than one species are present. A further 
search will generally be rewarded (?) by the discovery of some small 
white baggy cocoons under the protection of which the chrysalids 
of the same insects are passing towards moth-hood. These crea¬ 
tures are only capable of working serious mischief to the bee 
itself where the latter is in tie hands of the ignorant or negligent; 
but they should nevertheless in all cases be diligently sought out 
and mercilessly destroyed, as stock combs— i.e., combs removed 
and kept in store for future use, are liable to be wrecked by them 
even after due precautions have been taken. 
On a moonlight night in the warmer weather the female Gal¬ 
leria may commonly be seen flitting rapidly about the hive door 
in order to gain admission, so that her eggs may be deposited on 
the combs ; or she, having been baffled by the guards, may be noted 
seeking some crevice in the hive itself as the best “ opening in 
life” which she can obtain for her prospective young ones. The 
bees, with that instinct which as much outleaps our compre¬ 
hension as it excites our astonishment, appear perfectly to under¬ 
stand that the exclusion of the Galleria is a necessity of their 
well-being ; but the nocturnal moth has in the gloom an advantage 
over the defenders, for the former, a night-flying insect, can see 
much more clearly in a very weak light than can the bees. If a 
