JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
January 25, 1883 ] 
81 
what came under our notice this Christmas. A friend sent some 
honey which had been brought from St. Kitt3, in the 'West Indies. 
It had a decided smack of molasses, not such honey as we should 
care to have our bees collecting. The foreign little rogues had 
evidently not been satisfied with lawful spoils. We wrote and 
told our friend so, venturing a suspicion that his bees had made too 
close an acquaintance with the pressing-house. He tells us in 
reply that at times they infest the house where the canes are 
pressed, although flowers are in bloom all the year round. Doubt¬ 
less it is at a season when the principal natural supply is failing, 
and only shrubs here and there are in flower. We know that when 
the honey harvest is at its height in our own country bees will 
take no notice of vessels of honey stood about in the open air. 
However, bees must breed all the year long in such a climate as 
that experienced in the West Indies, in order to be able to continue 
the existence of the species. Where there is such continual wear 
and tear there must be constant reinforcement. 
We have gone farther than we need have done to prove that 
queens can be induced to continue laying after the season of 
natural rest has set in. We, however, did not say in our letter of 
the 4th inst. that our queens were permitted to discontinue laying, 
and then be induced by stimffative feeding to recommence, 
although this is the inference “Stinger” would draw from our 
letter. What we advocated was to cause to be carried on by feed¬ 
ing until the end of September wbat would in some districts be 
dropped at the end of August—viz., the gradual increase in the 
numbers of young bees. We did not wish to set down a hard-and- 
fast rule as to any particular date until which ieeding should be 
continued. It is obvious that locality must greatly influence this. 
One would not advocate feeding a stock of bees until October in a 
cold northern county. Between the north of Scotland and the 
south of England there would, generally speaking, be from six 
weeks’ to two months’ difference in what we might term the com¬ 
mencement of winter. The present winter has been a noted 
example of this. Trains were snowed up on the Scotch lines when 
we had a temperature of from 45° to 50° in the south-west of 
England. 
Again, the seasons differ. We have of late years, at any rate south 
of the Thames, had a succession of mild autumns. Should severe 
frost or snow threaten us early in October, then feeding would be at 
once discontinued. And how different are the conditions to be taken 
into consideration by those living in a district where the natural 
harvest closes when the Clovers are cut from those who enjoy the 
immediate vicinity of acres, perhaps miles of purple Heather ! In 
the former case the queens cease laying altogether, or only lay small 
patches of eggs in August; whereas in the neighbourhood of the 
Heather the greatest harvest of the y r ear is yet to be completed, and 
the hives are all aglow with fervent work. Where the quickly 
filled combs are judiciously withdrawn by the careful bee-master, 
and plenty of space given for storing on the sides of and above the 
brood-nest, the queen will continue laying vigorously until the 
harvest ends with the month of September, fine warm weather even 
continuing it into October in hilly countries. Would “ Stinger ’ in 
both cases adhere to his maxim—“ If the stocks are scarce of food 
by all means feed them, not without ? ” 
In the Heather district it is very plain that artificial feeding 
would be unnecessary, providing the weather allowed the bees to 
take advantage of the harvest. But how different the case in the 
Clover district. Let us see what would happen if such a rule were 
acted upon. Granted a successful Clover honey harvest, the bees 
would have plenty of food. We are, therefore, to let them alone. 
The same mild weather which allows of the ingathering of the 
Heather honey will tempt the bees in the other district to be ever 
abroad. The few flowering plants left will be sufficient to keep the 
bees foraging, and they will ever be seeking out weak and unde¬ 
fended hives on which to developc their robbing faculties. Still 
no constant addition is made to the stores. But bees would 
die. Beaten down by the mild but boisterous equinoctial winds, 
by sudden showers, or falling a prey to the thousand natural 
enemies awaiting them, the stock would be considerably diminished. 
Yet so little inducement would have been given to the queen to lay 
many eggs, owing to the absence of excitement in the hive, that 
the colony would settle into its winter quarters with few young 
bees to recruit its strength, and be a weak one in the spring. What 
we would aim at is to keep up breeding until such time as the bees 
are likely at once to remain quiescent through the winter immedi¬ 
ately after its discontinuance, to have our hives go into winter 
quarters with numbers of young bees. For the sake of intending 
bee-keepers and beginners in the art, we again repeat this sentence 
—“ Numbers of young bees.” 
By all means let us have the opinions of others on this matter, 
as “Stinger” suggests. As stated in our last letter, we consider 
the science of feeding of such paramount importance that it 
cannot be too carefully studied or too much written upon, and in 
the multitude of counsellors there is wisdom. “Stinger’s” warn¬ 
ings, however, seem to be, Beware of autumn feeding, and Depend 
on spring feeding. We would reverse this. Surely hives are often 
fed too soon in early spring ; how much more wintry weather we 
get in March than in September as a rule ! If our pets were put 
to bed in good condition there is no reason why we should insist 
on awaking them so early in the cold March morning. Let the 
energies of the hive be awakened at the same pace as spring 
awakens the sleeping flowers. When they put forth their beauties 
from the sun-warmed earth, then it will be time to help the bees to 
increase rapidly their numbers to woo the sweet blossoms. Last 
spring was an exception to the majority of many past springtides. 
Little stimulative food was required; so genial was the opening 
year that the land yielded her flowers, although not her fruits, in 
due season. 
We have learnt a lesson to be careful—very careful—how and 
when we force on our stocks in spring. When the weather assists 
our endeavours it is by far an easier matter to obtain plenty of bees 
early enough for the summer harvest or for the swarming season 
than to have stocks which shall begin the winter full of young life; 
therefore, again, we say that spring feeding is only supplementary 
to autumn feeding. The stronger the stock which has passed 
through the winter the safer can we apply to it our system of 
stimulative increase in spring. With the varying changes of the 
spring weather—from cold to hot, from hot to cold, so the strong 
cluster of bees condenses and expands, expands and condenses, still 
covering the growing brood-nest. We hold that there is more 
danger of getting chilled brood by feeding not over-strong hives 
early in spring than there is by feeding stocks up to the end of 
September. In concluding this letter we must thank “Stinger” 
for having drawn our attention again to the matter, and thus 
giving us an opportunity to write more fully on the subject, and we 
would earnestly invite others to give us their experienced opinion 
as to the merits of autumn stimulative Ieeding. Our further 
remarks on feeding in general must stand over to another oppor¬ 
tunity.—P. II. P. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Charles Turner, Slough. —Catalogue of Flower and Vegetable Seeds. 
William Rumsey, Waltham Cross. — Catalogue of Vegetable and 
Floioer Seeds. 
G. C. Elliott, Huddersfield.— Catalogue of Vegetable and Flower 
Seeds. 
W. Tait & Co., Dublin. —Catalogue of Vegetable and Flower Seeds. 
J. Cheal & Sons, Crawley, Sussex. — Catalogue of Vegetable and 
Flower Seeds ( Illustrated .) 
George Cooling & Son, Bath.— Catalogue of Vegetable and Flower 
Seeds. 
W. Toogood, 58, Above Bar, Southampton.— Catalogue of Vegetable 
and Flower Seeds. 
R. H. Poynter, Castle Green, Taunton.— Seed List for 1883. 
E. Wilson, Serpell, Plymouth. —Seed List for 18S3. 
Hogg & Robertson, 22, Mary Street, Dublin.— Catalogue of Vege¬ 
table, Flower Seeds. Garden Implements, <fc. 
Hooper & Co., Covent Garden, London.— Spring Catalogue of Seeds 
and Roots. 
H. Cannell & Sons, Svvanley, Kent.— Floral Guide for 1883. 
Stephen Brown, Weston-super-Mare, Somersetshire. —Catalogue of 
Floioer and Vegetable Seeds. 
William Bull, King’s Road, Chelsea.— Catalogue of Flower and 
Vegetable Seeds. 
P. J. Kane, Kells, Co. Meath, Ireland.— Catalogue of Flower and 
Vegetable Seeds. 
Harrison & Sons, Leicester.— Catalogue of Flower and Vegetable 
Seeds. 
James Cocker & Sons, Aberdeen.— Catalogue of Floioer and Vegetable 
Seeds. 
W. Hean Quick & Company, Barnstaple.— Catalogue of Garden, 
Flower, and Farm Seeds. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “ The Editor ” 
or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. Hogg or 
members of the staff often remain unopened unavoidably. We 
request that no one will write privately to any of our correspon¬ 
dents, as doing so subjects them to unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. 
