100 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. t February i. mz. 
the size of a cob nut to each gallon of the mixture. Tbrips spread 
rapidly upon plants in heat, and will injure these plants when 
in flower. 
Rhododendrons multiflorum, Gibsonii, Nobleanum, and caucasi- 
cnm varieties will come readily into flower if placed in heat, and 
will succeed Early Gem and prascox. Plants of the latter that 
have been kept in a cold house are coming into flower, while the 
latest batch that have been plunged and are still outside are 
swelling their buds rapidly, and will be allowed to open under 
cool treatment. All plants forced should be introduced in time, 
so that they can be allowed to open their flowers in a temperature 
of 45°. Not only are the flowers more natural in colour, but they 
last nearly double the time either on the plant or in a cut state. 
All plants from the present time that have been started for a week 
or two in a temperature of 45° will come forward rapidly in the 
forcing house, which should be kept 55° to 60°, acc rding to the 
weather. Syringe the plants in this house twice daily, giving air 
when favourable, and close the house early, so as to hu>band as 
much sun heat as possible. Dutch bulbs of every description will 
come forward very fast from the present time, and fresh batches 
should be introduced every week or ten days to maintain an 
unbroken supply. Keep them close to the glass, and remove 
them into a much lower temperature as soon as the first flowers 
open. 
Irnatophyllum miniatum and its varieties should now have their 
flower spikes well advanced in a cool house, and if wanted early 
place them in heat; if not, allow them to open in the cool. When 
it has flowered, if this plant is assisted to make its growth under 
the influence of heat, and then kept cool afterwards, it will open its 
flowers naturally during the winter and spring months. Single 
plants in from 5 to 7-inch pots are the most serviceable for 
decorative purposes, and large plants can be split up directly 
after flowering, and placed in single pots if necessary. These 
plants will do in the same pots for a number of years with liberal 
feeding, providing the drainage is good, or can have the old soil 
shaken from them annually after flowering, placing them in the 
same size pots with new compost, which is preferable. 
DOES AUTUMN FEEDING CAUSE BEES TO 
RECOMMENCE BREEDING? 
A CORRESPONDENT of the Journal has lately suggested a fuller 
expression of opinion on this subject than we have had ; and if 
I understood his letter he thinks that the weight of evidence 
given by experienced men is not in favour of autumn Reding 
being practised for the object of getting a late hatch of brood. In 
this thought we agree with him, believing that the most successful 
bee keepers of Great Britain do not feed their bees in autumn 
merely to get late hatches of brood. But does autumn feeding 
cause queens to recommence laying after the regular season has 
passed 1 
At the end of the Clover season, say at the end of July or 
beginning of August, many hives or queens cease to breed ; and 
when taken to the moors about the I2th of August during a glut 
of honey recommence breeding, and fill theirhives with brood 
from side to side. If bees in August and the beginning of Sep¬ 
tember be constantly and vigorously fed they will recommence 
breeding. The weather then is not cold, and pollen is abundant. 
But August is not an autumn mouth as understood by bee¬ 
keepers. The Clover season in Scotland does not end till the 
middle of August, when the rich Heather begins. Take a hive in 
the middle of September a month after the queen has been resting 
and barren, and begin to feed it in moderation, say 1 !t>. sugar 
per day, and watch the result. Probably not more than one 
queen in four so treated will recommence to lay even if 
surrounded with peameal and barley bannocks. It is unnatural 
for queens to lay at that season, and hence the artificial attempts 
made to overfeed queens and cause them to lay often fail. We 
do not follow or recommend such artificial practice in order to 
get hatches of brood. That hatches of brood are sometimes 
obtained by artificial feeding we know very well. Even when 
obtained they are comparatively small and hardly worth the cost 
and trouble of their production. Another consideration, not 
important, is this: Does a late hatch exhaust and weaken the 
queen to a certain extent, and prevent her from laying so early 
in spring as she otherwise would do ? This question we cannot 
answer with certainty, but we hesitate not to say that the more 
closely the lines of Nature are followed the better it will be for 
bees, and probably also for their masters. 
The process of creating stocks in autumn from bees of honey 
hives, and from those snatched from brimstone pits and sold as 
condemned bees, I have lately explained ; but 1 may here say that 
if such bees are put iuto empty hives in August or the first half of 
September and then fed vigorously the bees build combs rapidly, 
and great sheets of brood are generally produced ; but if this work 
be attempted later in the season it is more difficult of accomplish¬ 
ment, as the bees sit more closely together, less inclined for work, 
and more reluctantly build combs—such combs being thick and 
dumpy, built to hold syrup and not brood. The queens, too, want 
rest, and it is a difficult matter to bring them into a state of 
pregnancy. 
Our system of autumn feeding practised for fifty years is easily 
explained and understood. The bees of honey hives are preserved 
and united to the stocks marked for keeping, thus making them 
numerically strong. Even the brood in the honey hives is pre¬ 
served, hatched, and utilised in the same way. Such strong stocks 
require much food from September till April. If they have not 
enough honey in September we give them sufficient syrup then, 
and give it to them rapidly. Our feeding boards hold from 4 to 
0 lbs. of syrup each—that is, from two to three quarts. And our 
bees in September can take and store up three quarts in a day 
easily. But why feed them so rapidly ? Because we care nothing 
about a late batch of brood, and know well that in rapid feeding 
in autumn there is less consumption and waste of food. Slow 
and continuous feeding is desirable in spring when breeding 
commences, and when once begun it should be continued and 
encouraged by the administration of food ; but in autumn things 
are different. Robbers abound, pillage is the order of the day, and 
hence the quieter hives are kept the less food is consumed and 
fewer lives are lost. In ordinary seasons good hives require about 
15 lbs. of honey or syrup to keep their bees from September till 
March. If bees are kept comfortably warm in winter, the less 
they are then disturbed by feeding the better.—A. Pettigrew, 
lioivdon. 
INTRODUCING QUEENS WITHOUT ENCAGING. 
It is well known that a serious loss is occasioned to a colony of 
bees, especially in early spring, by the exchange of queens 
through the stranger being caged for forty-eight hours, or even a 
less time. The colony does not only lose the eggs that might 
have been produced during that time, but the sudden check im¬ 
posed upon a full-laying queen by being imprisoned, throws her 
back so much that she does not recover her usual fecundity for 
some days. Imported queens will often not layfat all for the first 
few days ; and the cr’ginal sovereign having been deposed or 
destroyed, the colony suffers the loss equivalent to an average 
swarm before the Dew arrival is in good order for laying. 
This has been so strongly impressed on my mind that for a long 
time past I have been experimenting, in the hope that I might 
ultimately be enabled to dispense with the introducing cage 
entirely. I am happy to say that I have succeeded beyond my 
expectations, and the method is so simple that the only wonder is 
that I had not thought of it sooner. Colonies with fertile workers, 
or those that have been long queenless without brood (as they are 
sometimes found in early spring), cause me no trouble whatever, 
as I can give them a laying queen without her ceasing her work 
except for the few moments that she is being transferred from 
one hive to another. When a queen is sold with a swarm another 
can be immediately inserted, and the queen of one colony can be 
exchanged with that of another without confinement, and none 
of the bees of the respective colonies will know the difference. 
It is generally known that the bees of one colony may be united 
with those of another by alternating their combs, and there is no 
disposition to fight. Having always succeeded in uniting them 
thus, I came to the conclusion that a queen on a comb with her 
own bees and brood would be taken no more notice of than the 
others, and this I have proved to be the case by continued and 
unvarying success. Taken from one hive and placed in another 
while parading among her own subjects and without being handled, 
the queen takes no notice whatever of the change, and thus her 
unconcerned behaviour saves her from any rude inquisitiveness. 
1 have introduced them under all the respective conditions before 
mentioned by this means, and I have not met with a single failure ; 
and during the last two seasons I have been saved a large amount 
of extra work by this method, besides a considerable gain in 
increase in bees. As soon as the comb, queen, and bees are in¬ 
serted the job is done, and I never trouble to look at the hive 
again until its turn comes in the ordinary course of manipulation. 
The foregoing applies, of course, to queens reared in the same 
