JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
88 
[ January 11, 1883. 
of 60° up to the present have their flower buds swelling rapidly > 
and should, if grown in any quantity, be divided into two or three 
batches. The most forward should be placed where a rise of 5° 
at night can be given them, with a corresponding rise during the 
day. They should be syringed once or twice daily when the 
weather is favourable. The young plants that were rooted in 
autumn and kept in small pots can now be transferred into others 
5 or 6 inches in diameter. The points of the shoots should be 
pinched out as soon as the roots take to the new soil. If young 
plants have not been prepared for an early start strong cuttings 
should at once be selected from the non-flowering shoots and in¬ 
serted singly in thumb pots. The compost should be sandy peat 
for the cuttings, and then good fibry loam, to which should be 
added one 6-inch potful of bonemeal and half the quantity of 
soot to each barrowful of soil, and sufficient coarse sand to render 
the whole porous. After the cuttings are well watered they should 
be plunged into a bottom heat of 85° and covered with a bell- 
glass or handlight. Gardenias are free-rooting plants, and every 
cutting will quickly strike. From cuttings inserted and rooted 
at once fine plants will be produced in twelve months, carrying 
from twenty to thirty flowers each. Young plants propagated and 
grown annually are preferable to retaining old specimens. The 
oldest, or three-year-old plants, that have been retained for early 
flowering should after blooming be thrown away. Young plants 
under cultivation in pots grow more luxuriantly, and are in con¬ 
sequence less liable to the attacks of mealy bug and scale. 
Gloxinias that have had a good season of rest can now be 
started. The old soil should be shaken from them and the tubers 
soaked in tepid water. After they have drained sufficiently they 
can be repotted in the same or larger pots, according to the size 
of the tubers. The drainage should be liberal and the pots clean, 
using a compost of loam, one-third leaf soil, and a seventh of 
decayed manure, with a liberal quantity of sand. Pot them firmly 
and place the pots where a temperature of 60° to 65° is maintained. 
Caladiums may also be started, using similar soil for potting. 
Achimenes for early flowering should now be shaken out of the 
old soil and then placed in any light sandy soil in pans, watered, 
and placed in heat. 
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B. 
HE BEE-KEEPER. I 
—11 VTl 
NFL 
EXCESSIVE SWARMING. 
Owing to the many unfavourable seasons for bees during the 
last ten years many young apiarians are unacquainted with the 
difficulties of excessive swarming. Bee-keepers of longer ex¬ 
perience know that in some seasons not favourable for honey- 
gathering bees are slow to swarm and seem unwilling to leave 
their parent hives, and that in hot and honey seasons they often 
swarm before they are fully ready, and even first swarms send off 
colonies or virgin swarms before their own hives are filled with 
combs. Bee-keepers are now more numerous than they ever were 
before, and, what is better, they are more enlightened than they 
were a few years ago ; and though the past of their experience in 
many cases has been rather disappointing, they are still hopeful of 
a return of good bee seasons. I am one of the most hopeful, and 
believe that we shall have, as in olden times, warm seasons and 
heavy harvests of honey. When honey seasons do come bees will 
swarm often and readily, and many young apiarians will be 
perplexed. In such times swarms come off unexpectedly, and 
many are lost. 
The preparations and arrangements which bees make for 
swarming have been explained by several teachers in this Journal. 
First swarms take the queen with them, but before swarming 
royal cells are formed and eggs placed in them, so that the parent 
hives shall not be long queenless after the swarms have left. First 
swarms never issue till royal cells are occupied by eggs or grubs. 
This is well known, and many bee-keepers try to prevent swarm¬ 
ing by cutting out all the royal cells. The bees soon build more, 
place eggs in them, and swarm all the same. This practice of 
cutting out royal cells may be repeated again and again without 
finally preventing swarming. In hot seasons bees will swarm, and 
it is a difficult matter to thwart them while the swarming fever 
lasts, for sometimes they will set eggs in royal cells and swarm 
the same day ; and if first swarms are cast back on the parent 
hives they will issue again within twenty-four hours. In such 
struggles between bees and their masters many swarms are lost. 
To prevent the loss of swarms some bee-keepers clip a wing off 
every queen, so that they cannot fly ; but even this does not pre¬ 
vent swarming, for though the queens without wings cannot 
follow the swarms, they leave their hives with them and fall over 
the flight boards and crawl about in front of the hives till the 
swarms return ; but still swarming is not prevented, for if the 
queens crawl back into the hives the efforts to swarm will be re¬ 
peated again and again. All this is not surprising, for it is as 
natural for bees to swarm in good seasons as it is for broody hens 
to seek nests. In hot honey seasons many second swarms are 
obtained, and sometimes three swarms issue from one hive. When 
the eggs set in royal cells come to perfection the piping sounds 
are heard ; the young queens—one hatched, the others in their 
cells—pipe and bark at one another for three days and nights 
before second swarms issue. If all the royal cells but one are 
removed or cut out before piping commences no second swarms 
will issue. If this is not done, and second swarms do issue when 
not required, they should be cast back on the mother hives some 
hours after they left, and this will prevent further swarming, 
because all the queens will be destroyed but one, and the hives 
have no eggs at the time. 
Though I am now going to mention the measures adopted to 
prevent swarming I do not wish the reader to believe that I 
manage my bees on the non-swarming system. In most seasons I 
follow the swarming principle, believing that it is the best and 
most profitable way of managing an apiary ; but I try to keep 
swarming within proper limits. Many bee-keepers prefer the 
non-swarming system of management, and aim at great results in 
super honey. 
Supering, or enlarging hives by supers, is the general mode 
adopted to prevent swarming, but this too often fails and swarms 
are lost; hence it is desirable to cut all the royal cells out of hives 
at the time supers are placed on them. This may be considered 
one of the best modes adopted for preventing swarming, and very 
often answers, especially in the Stewarton principle of supering. 
The bees, being deprived of their royal cells at the time, they find 
plenty of room added to their hives for expansion ; they often 
abandon the idea of swarming and settle down to hard steady 
work for the whole season, filling one super after another. 
Many artificial measures are adopted by advanced bee-keepers 
to prevent the loss of swarms in hot seasons. By artificial swarm¬ 
ing I have been able to manage a large apiary for many years at 
a small expense of time and anxiety. If men know when their 
bees are ready for swarming, and also able to swarm them arti¬ 
ficially in a few minutes, an apiary in their care and management 
is comparatively but a small undertaking ; but untutored aud in¬ 
expert bee-keepers unable to adopt the artificial practice may well 
fear the loss of swarms in seasons of excessive swarming. As 
various modes of artificial swarming have from time to time been 
given in detail in this Journal I shall not go over the ground in 
this letter. I am anxious, however, for beginners to know and 
remember that in both natural and artificial swarming the parent 
hives are queenless for awhile after first swarms are taken or go 
from them. If two hives become ready to swarm about the same 
time one of them may be swarmed and placed a few feet to the 
right of the old stand, and the swarm as far to the left. The 
queen of the other hive ready to swarm could be taken from it 
and given to the one which has been swarmed. Thus swarming 
in both hives would be prevented for at least seventeen days ; but 
the one which yielded the queen for the other would have young 
queens ready for piping and swarming on or about the seventeenth 
day after losing its queen. If we do not want second swarms at 
all we cut all the royal cells out of hives as soon as the queens 
begin to pipe, and this prevents piping and swarming too. If all 
the queen cells cannot be seen or reached while the bees are in the 
hive we drive them into an empty hive, remove the royal cells, 
and cast the bees back. 
Again, if the bees in two hives are ready for swarming at the 
same time, and only one good swarm is wanted, we drive all the 
bees and queen from one hive into an empty one, and place the 
swarm on the same stand. Then we take a swarm at once from 
the other stock and cast the bees amongst the combs and brood, 
while yet warm, of the first hive. Thus the queens, combs, 
and brood of both hives are utilised, and swarming is prevented 
for about three weeks. Thus by a little skilful manoeuvring 
swarms are not lost, and excessive swarming is prevented. In 
hot seasons and in the hands of inexperienced people swarms 
multiply too much. It would be better for them to put two or 
more swarms in one hive than have a great number hardly worth 
keeping or noticing. In most seasons and places one swarm 
is enough to take from each stock, and in the best of seasons and 
localities never more than two swarms should be taken from a 
stock hive, however excellent. 
In order to prevent swarming in ordinary seasons large supers 
should be placed on hives before they are quite ready for swarm¬ 
ing, and as much freedom of access to them as possible. Boom 
