JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
February 22, 1883. ] 
163 
This plant should be grown in quantity where the stove is 
required to be gay through the spring and early summer months, 
as it can be brought into flower at a time when the stove would 
otherwise be rather short of flowers. This is one of the best 
plants that can be grown for producing a long succession of 
flowers. It can be pushed forward, and delights in brisk moist 
heat while making its growth, or will bear retarding. When the 
roots commence advancing top-dressing or potting can be done, 
as this plant will not long continue healthy with sour soil about 
its roots. Every alternate year the whole of the compost should 
be removed from amongst its roots and renewed with fresh, using 
fibrous peat from which the small particles have been shaken, 
and sphagnum moss in equal parts, with the addition of charcoal 
and coarse silver sand. The pots or pans employed must be a 
little more than three parts filled with drainage, and the plants 
well elevated above the rim and surfaced with a good layer of 
sphagnum, which should be encouraged to grow. 
Greenhouse .—Show and Fancy Pelargoniums. The most for¬ 
ward batch of these plants, if required to come into flower as early 
as possible, should, if not already done, be placed in their flower¬ 
ing pots. The shoots must not be pinched again after this date, 
but staked so that they will not draw up weakly. Keep them near 
to the glass in a night temperature of 50°. After potting keep 
them close for ten days until they commence rooting into the new 
soil, and then ventilate liberally when favourable, and slightly at 
night also when the weather is mild. Succession batches should 
receive attention in the potting from time to time as they require 
it, and take out the points of the shoots when they have made 
about four joints. Keep these plants in a temperature of 45°, and 
give the same treatment after potting as advised for the early 
batch. Use a compost of rich fibry loam, a seventh of decayed 
manure, a little soot and sand. Press the soil firmly into the pots, 
which will cause a firm stocky growth and assist in keeping the 
plants dwarf, which in due time will produce abundance of bloom. 
Any of the old stock plants that have become leggy may have the 
cuttings taken from them and be thrown away. Cuttings inserted 
singly in small pots and placed on a shelf in a temperature of 60 3 
will root freely. When rooted pinch out the point of the plants, 
place them in 5-inch pots, and valuable plants for late flowering 
will be produced. Water these plants carefully for some time 
after potting ; if kept too wet at the roots the foliage becomes 
spotted, and in consequence much injured. Supply the early batch 
with clear soot water when the pots are full of roots. Destroy 
aphides by fumigating with tobacco paper as soon as they appear. 
if is! 
-IE BEE-KEEPER: J 
- i • i • i • i • i • i - i • i • i • i - i • i - i - i • i • i • t - i • i • t • i *i • i • i • i-- i 
FEEDING BEES IN AUTUMN, SPUING, AND 
SUMMER. 
(Continued from page 144.) 
Not only now, hut sometimes in the height of summer, feeding 
is obligatory. Every experienced bee-keeper can well remember 
seasons when swarms have starved to death in their hives during June 
and July. The swarm is hived and placed on its stand to shift for 
itself. A succession of wet days sets in, and the poor bees, left to 
their fate in an empty house, are found by the ignorant or careless 
owner a mass of corruption on the floor-board. Even during 
favourable seasons there are periods of great scarcity of food in 
most neighbourhoods, and if the bees are not fed during such 
seasons breeding will quite or nearly cease, and the hive will be 
going back just at the time when the accumulation of strength is 
most needed to be ready to take advantage of a succeeding honey 
harvest. Notably between the flowering of the fruit trees and the 
Clover harvest there is a dearth of food, and the man who wishes 
his bees to do their best will carefully feed them over that trying 
and depressing interval. A few pence spent on sugar, and a little 
extra trouble, are amply repaid by the honey stored by the bees 
hatched out during the two or three weeks of gentle feeding. In 
districts where Heather is expected the harvest will begin from the 
latter part of July to the middle of August, and with fine weather 
last until late in September. In the south the former date will 
hold, and in the north of England and in Scotland the latter period 
will be near the mark. 
Another season of dearth usually is experienced between the end 
of the hay harvest and the opening of the Heather flowers. This 
interval is in some districts filled by crops of other kinds and by the 
Lime trees, but often the bees find little food between the two great 
harvests mentioned. Here is another occasion for feeding; and to 
the man who means to get as large a harvest of honey as his bees 
are capable of collecting for him, it is an occasion of obligatory 
feeding. So long as sufficient honey is in the hive to supply all the 
wants of the bees gentle stimulative feeding will suffice, or even the 
occasional uncapping with a sharp knife of a small portion of sealed 
stores. The bees in removing this uncapped treasure and re-storing 
it in another place cause that excitement in the hive which is neces¬ 
sary to induce the queen to continue laying. But it will be said by 
some, “ If you keep up such constant work in the hive the queen 
will soon wear out.” And such is truly the case. A queen must 
certainly have the power only to deposit a certain number of fertile 
eggs during her lifetime, and if we put on such high pressuro she 
must fulfil her life’s duties and complete her complement in a shorter 
period. For this reason queens should not be allowed to remain at 
the head of a colony much over two seasons. A hive should always 
be set apart, and that the best hive in the apiary, for supplying 
young queens, and these young queens should at favourable oppor¬ 
tunities be put in the place of queens advancing into their third 
year of work. 
There is one other case of obligatory feeding which must be 
noticed, and that is winter feeding. This, with proper management, 
should hardly ever be necessary, except through the effects of some 
accident. During a violent gale and snowstorm some years ago a 
bar-frame hive was completely overturned and buried under the 
snow. We dug it out, finding many bees killed, the frames in wild 
confusion, and the mass of bees huddled together under a comb at 
one corner of the hive. Little life was apparent, but they were 
brought into a well-warmed greenhouse, a new hive placed at their 
disposal, and their combs (at least those remaining whole) were 
cleaned and re-adjusted in the new hive. In a short time the mass 
showed the good effects of the warmth, and movement began. 
Warm food was first gently sprinkled over them, then when they 
got active given by the usual method through a feeding stage, and 
the stock was saved, a little thinned in numbers, but soon making 
up in the following spring for the loss. We only mention this as 
an example how to act in such an emergency, and accidents will 
happen in the best regulated apiary. Whenever food is absolutely 
required in winter it should be given warm and in a warm place. 
Our subject of feeding is not yet exhausted. We hope to call 
attention at a future time to the methods of preparing and giving 
other food than syrup as substitutes for the nitrogenous foods which 
bees require before they can rear brood. Water also is an import¬ 
ant requisite, and much bee life is often saved by the artificial 
administering of water to the bees. We wish that other evidence 
had been forthcoming from experienced bee-masters regarding 
autumn feeding. We know of many who are authorities on the 
subject who would hold the same ideas as we have attempted to 
explain.—P. H. P. 
BRITISH BEE-KEEPERS’ ASSOCIATION. 
The annual General Meeting of the members of this Association 
was held in the Board-room of the Royal Society for the Prevention 
of Cruelty to Animals, 105, Jermyn Street, on Thursday, 15th inst. 
There was a large attendance of members, the chair being taken by 
the Baroness Burdett Coutts, the President of the Association. In 
moving the adoption of the report and balance-sheet for the past 
year, her ladyship congratulated the members upon the success 
which had attended their efforts to promote and extend the know¬ 
ledge of bee-keeping throughout the United Kingdom. She con¬ 
sidered great thanks were due to the Committee, and more especially 
to the Honorary Secretary, for their labours to make bee-keeping a 
great national industry. 
Votes of thanks were accorded to the retiring officers, and the fol¬ 
lowing were re-elected for the ensuing year—viz., President, the 
Baroness Burdett-Coutts; Treasurer, W. 0. B. Glennie, Esq.; 
Auditor, W. A. Kirchner, Esq.; Librarian, Mr. G. Henderson; 
Honorary Secretary, Rev. Herbert R. Peel. In returning thanks for 
his re-election, the Honorary Secretary called attention to the benefits 
which could be derived from the establishment of a Bee-keeper’s 
Club in some central part of London, where meetings might be held, 
and the Association’s library be deposited. A large increase in the 
present amount of subscriptions must, however, take place before this 
project could be realised. 
The acting Committee of the Association is elected annually by 
voting papers. The following gentlemen have been elected for the 
ensuing year :—viz., Rev. E. Bartrum, Hon. and Rev. H. Bligh, Capt. 
C. D. Campbell, Thos. W. Cowan, Esq., J. M. Hooker, Esq., H. Jonas, 
Esq., Rev. G. Raynor, Rev. F. T. Scott, D. Stewart, Esq. 
The Secretary reported that communications had been made with 
the several railway 7 companies for the purpose of obtaining a reduc¬ 
tion in the rates charged for goods and for exhibitors’ fares to and 
from the various county bse and honey shows held annually through¬ 
out the United Kingdom, and announced that the matter would be 
taken into consideration at a conference of the managers of the 
several railway companies to be held in April next. 
An animated discussion ensued upon the following motion, proposed 
