144 JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. c February 16 , 1888 . 
Generations of bees had lived and died in the ordinary cottagers’ 
skep, and had been about at their best perhaps just as the time of 
harvest had passed by. 
Driven bees must of course be treated as swarms; but since they 
are usually obtained late in the summer, and have little chance to 
store much food from natural sources, they must have sufficient food 
given them to carry them over to the following spring—from 15 to 
30 lbs. of food, according to the strength of the colony. The 
food should be, as recommended for autumn-stimulating feeding, 
made with less water than that employed in spring and summer, 
and all feeding should be discontinued after the middle of October. 
Should the rescued colony have been taking the food gradually 
before, when October commences it should be fed rapidly. Should 
the weather have become cold and wet, and the bees disinclined to 
take the food, we have brought hives into a warm room or green¬ 
house, closed the entrance with perforated zinc, and fed rapidly 
every evening, putting the hive again into its place on fine morn¬ 
ings, to allow the bees to take a flight. All syrup not sealed over 
by the middle of October is to be extracted, otherwise it might 
ferment and cause the bees to have dysentery. 
A word of warning should here be given to beginners in the art 
of bee-keeping. The influence of such a mild winter as we have 
experienced in the south is to cause bees to consume great quantities 
of food, because they have been constantly on the move; therefore 
there may be many cases in which feeding, which we term obligatory 
feeding, may now be required. We would not attempt to stimulate 
bees lo breed largely yet. In our former letter we said that we had 
learnt to be most careful how we excited our bees too early in the 
year; but where food is running short, and it will be now in 
many hives, especially in the best, the healthiest, and the strongest, 
there we must renew the store, or the garrison will be starved out. 
The syrup should be given rapidly. It should be warm, and placed 
over the feeding hole, or at the side chamber of the hive, such as 
we have recommended. It should be given in the evening, so as to 
do away with any chance of bees from other hives having know¬ 
ledge of the operation. What is not taken down during the night 
should be removed in the morning, and again given warm the next 
evening. Later on this must be followed by stimulative food. 
Should there be signs of dysentery in any hives, some warm food 
should be given in the same manner as explained above, having 
mixed with it a teaspoonful of salicylic solution to every pound of 
food. The solution should also be used for spraying the combs, 
floorboard, and sides of the hive. We copy the recipe from Mr. 
Cowan’s book on bee-keeping:—Salicylic acid, 1 oz.; soda borax, 
1 oz.; water, 4 pints. Bee-keepers should keep this solution by 
them in well-corked bottles, as it is invaluable to cure and prevent 
dysentery and the germs of foul brood.—P. H. P. 
(To be continued.) 
“ UN-GET-AT-ABLE ” HIVES. 
A very able and respectable correspondent, “P. H. P.,” has lately 
used this expressive compound word in referring to and in disparage¬ 
ment of straw hives. I rather like expressive -words if they are 
accurate and correct. But probably your correspondent used the 
word as a figure of speech, not as one conveying his own sober 
thought, for he must know that hives un-get-at-able are quite un¬ 
known in the apiarian world. From every point of view the word 
in question is inaccurate, and, in my opinion, misleading. I look 
back half a century, when numbers of bee-keepers I then knew 
were well informed in the mysteries of bee-keeping. It is true 
they knew nothing of bar-frame hives, for they never saw one or 
dreamt of their introduction, and if there was a book on bees in 
the district I should have heard of it. Yet these men living fifty 
years ago were in my opinion as well acquainted with the habits 
and natural history of bees as many of the most advanced experts 
and professors are now. The wonderful internal workings and 
doings of bees were unfolded to and well understood by these 
ancient bee-keepers. And all this knowledge was gained from hives 
which “ P. H. P.” is pleased to call “un-get-at-able.” Large har¬ 
vests of honey, as well as accurate knowledge and experience, were 
obtained from these hives, and the difficulty of taking the honey did 
not trouble these old bee-keepers much. 
I come now to notice my experience with and amongst such hives. 
In my hands they have been well and fairly tested. I like them 
exceedingly, and better after every year’s trial. They have never 
once failed in a very extensive practice. In them I can get or 
cause to be bred as many queens as I wish, and from them I have 
no difficulty in extracting young queens as they arrive at maturity. 
By turning up a straw hive (and this is easily done), I can examine 
the internal doings of the bees, see what progress is being made, 
and learn all that is necessary to know in the management of an 
apiary. Indeed, I have been able to examine twelve straw hives, 
and see all I wanted to see, while those of the bar- frame school 
have been busy examining one of theirs. Brood healthy and brood 
unhealthy, queens fertilised and unfertilised, can all be noticed in 
these hives. I have seen harvests of honey taken from straw hives 
which I think would please and astonish “ P. H. P.” and other 
modern bee-keepers. Such harvests of honey from bar-frame 
hives would gratify their owners, and I earnestly hope that such 
will be obtained. I anticipate that the coming season will be a 
good one for honey, and that hives of all kinds will be well stored. 
1 have ordered thirty-two straw Stewartons to be made for my 
swarms. As soon as they arrive other orders will be given for more 
Stewartons and straw hives. Our respected friends may rest 
assured that if they be well filled I shall “ get at” the honey and 
send it to market, for it is my intention to keep an accurate balance 
sheet of the expenses and profits of my apiary this year, and 
present it to the bee-loving community of Great Britain. What¬ 
ever the profits may be will be the outcome of straw hives.— 
A. Pettigrew, Bomdon. 
WINTER BREEDING OF BEES. 
After reading the remarks of “ P. H. P.” on autumn feeding, 
I took the first opportunity of a mild day, with the thermometer 
registering 49°, to examine our bees, thinking possibly they may 
have been in want of food, as they were not fed in the autumn, 
and each hive was reduced to six frames. I was rather surprised 
in two of them to find many young bees, apparently just hatched, 
also a quantity of brood, some of which were hatching, enough to 
nearly fill a frame in each of them. In one hive the queen was 
reared about the end of July, in the other the queen was reared 
the summer before ; and as these were treated in the same way as 
the other hives with queens of the same ages, I cannot account 
for so much brood at this time of the year.—J. L. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Benjamin Pounsett, High Street, Wallingford, Berks .—Catalogue 
of Vegetable and Flower Seeds. 
James Yates, 29, Little Underbank, Stockport. — Catalogue of 
Flower and Vegetable 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. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions relat¬ 
ing to Gardening and those on Poultry and Bee subjects, and 
should never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, 
and we do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
A Strange Plant (Halifax ).A plant which grows with its roots above 
ground and all the rest of its growth below ” is something quite new to us, and 
perhaps your friend can furnish you with some further particulars concerning 
it, which would, we should think, be rather interesting. He must be an ex¬ 
tremely observant person, and deserves much credit for his discovery. 
Carpet Bedding Plants (S. J. W .).—The Acrena you name can be raised 
from seed, or by cuttings inserted in sandy soil in a cool frame, but we doubt if 
you would be able to raise sufficient stock by bedding-out time. In addition to 
the other plants you name you might grow Oxahs corniculata rubra and Ajuga 
reptans to furnish the dark colour ; both have reddi-h foliage, the first-named 
being exceedingly dark. The first can be increased by seed and the latter by 
division of the roots. 
Conifer Hedge (Idem ).—We know of no Conifer that makes a more beau¬ 
tiful hedge than Thuia Lobbi. It grows closely without being formal, is very 
hardy, and retains its bright green colour throughout the winter. You can 
obtain plants of the height you require from nurserymen who grow Conifers 
largely. Thuia occidentalis, the American Arbor-Vitae, is much cheaper, and 
also forms a neat hedge, so does Cupressus Lawsoniana. The Yew hedges are 
the closest of all, but the colour may, perhaps, be too sombre for your purpose. 
Potting Tuberous Begonias (G. S„ Renfrew ).—The tubers should be 
placed in light gritty compost, surrounding them with silver sand, and just 
covering them with soil; or, to be more precise, those less in size than a walnut may 
be covered a quarter of an inch deep, those that are larger twice that depth, and 
very large ones 3 inches in diameter may be placed an inch below the surface. 
If the pots can be plunged in a bottom heat of 80“ or 85° it will be an advantage 
in facilitating the growth of the plants. 
Peach for Wall (IT. T. G. IT., Reading ).—Grosse Mignonne was, we think, 
