288 
HOW TO FRY FISH.— MANAGEMENT OF HONEY-BEES.-NO. 12 . 
beet-seeds, or Indian corn. These were to be re¬ 
moved or added according to the size of the seed. 
There were various threshing machines, but I 
saw nothing which seemed like a new principle. 
An assortment of flails hanging at one end of the 
room exceeded anything that I ever saw for clum¬ 
siness. Two or three of them were made from one 
crooked stick. The scythes were nearly as bad, 
the blades being about three feet long, almost en¬ 
tirely straight, and immensely thick. It must be 
very difficult to mow with such awkward tools. 
To my great surprise I discovered among them an 
American cradle for grain. It is too expeditious a 
tool for the laborers here, whose object, in too many 
cases, seems to be to do as little as possible in the 
course of a day. The slowness and inefficiency of 
mechanics is a universal source of complaint; but 
after all they only fellow the general spirit of the 
nation at present. It is to be hoped that the Nether¬ 
lands may shake off that apathy which has gradu¬ 
ally settled down upon everything, and renew the 
vigor of their former days. The commencement 
now making in the improvement of their agricul¬ 
ture is one of the most important steps towards such 
an end. Some agricultural schools have already 
commenced. 
Last week I attended the second annual congress 
of those interested and engaged in agriculture. It 
was held at Arnheim, the capital of the province of 
Guelderland, and continued three days. Several 
hundred persons were present, and much informa¬ 
tion was collected. One peculiarity I noticed, as 
perhaps worthy of adoption in our State meetings. 
The chairman, soon after the meeting opened, called 
upon gentlemen from the various provinces to report 
each, the state and the prospects of the crops in his 
own district. In this way, and in a few moments, 
information w*as obtained from every part of the 
country upon points most interesting to all of the 
farming community. 
But I have strayed from the agricultural museum. 
I had however in addition only to notice collections 
of tools used in transplanting trees, and of all the 
apparatus used in dairies ; this department was in¬ 
teresting, but contained nothing specially new. The 
hand-tools are almost all extremely awkward when 
compared with ours, both in shape and finish. 
John P. Norton. 
TJtrecht, June 9th, 1847. 
-O — <■ 
How to Fry Fish. —A correspondent to one of 
our exchanges, writing from northern New York, 
on his way to Ogdensburg, tells how fish should be 
fried ; and we think he is in the right. It seems he 
breakfasted on trout, at a stopping place called 
Beekmantown, west of Plattsburgh. 
He says the practice there is to put the fish into 
the fat while the fat is boiling hot; and there 
should always b>e fat enough for the fish to float. 
If the fish is put into cool fat, or what is not boil¬ 
ing hot, it absorbs all the fat and is not fit to eat. If 
the fish is put into shallow fat it falls to the bot¬ 
tom of the pan and burns, adhering so close that 
it cannot be taken out without breaking in 
pieces. 
Fried fish should be cooked quick, and trouts, or 
smelts, cooked well, will have no bones to trouble 
the muncher. 
MANAGEMENT OF HONEY-BEES—No. 12. 
The question now arises, how shall we remove 
our bees from old to new hives, in order to obviate 
the difficulty attending breeding in cells too old to 
answer the greatest degree of prosperity. Mr. Al¬ 
len’s plan (See p. 147, of the current volume), of 
placing empty hives under full ones that require 
such a change, and then closing the entrances of 
the full hives, and compelling the bees to descend 
through apertures in the tops of the empty hives in 
which the bees construct fresh combs, for a new 
habitation, appears to be a very reasonable way of 
surmounting the difficulty in question; yet there 
are evils connected with this system, that must 
cause its practice, for any considerable series of 
years, to prove highly detrimental to that perfect 
success that I consider attainable in all cases, where 
bee-pasturage is good or even fair. Every person 
who has kept bees on the storifyingplan, must have 
noticed, that the bees construct their combs in the 
houses, in the chambers, without any regard to 
form or shape ; but apparently, having no other 
object, but that of storing the greatest possible 
quantity of honey in the space allotted them. The 
respective size of drone and work-cells, that is, 
their hexagonal shape, is never varied, being in 
every hive in existence, of precisely the same di¬ 
ameter; but the lengih of these cells is varied from 
a quarter of an inch to three inches. These deep 
cells are entirely unfit for general breeding; hence 
we find the broad combs, in the permanent domicil 
of the bees, to be of a uniform thickness, and built 
at regular distances with the utmost regularity. 
Now, in all extra room afforded the bees, unless it 
be of such a nature as to allow them to construct 
new combs in continuation of those already built, 
they have a tendency to run into sfore-combs. This 
difference is rather greater in stipering than in col¬ 
lateral boxes, or nadiring. Mr. Allen’s plan is what 
is termed nadiring. When the bees find them¬ 
selves thus nadired by an empty box, with a hole 
through the top, say four inches square, more or less, 
through which they pass down to obtain egress, they 
look upon this unexpected additional room in the 
light of a store-room, and in their labors here, that 
natural instinct, that teaches them to construct their 
permanent works with such astonishing architec¬ 
tural exactness, is much less manifest. 
The space allotted in every hive for drone-cells, 
may in such cases be entirely disregarded, as a 
superabundance of these cells may be built, should 
the flowers be very prolific in honey, as for rapid 
gathering; drone-cells are often built for surplus 
honey, being more rapidly constructed, and holding 
more honey in the same area of inches, than ordi¬ 
nary cells. Should there be no drone-cells built 
below, or more built than usual, or should the 
combs vary at all from those constructed by bees, 
on entering a new hive for the first time, the conse¬ 
quences would be fatal sooner or later; hence, I 
consider this plan as extremely hazardous, and en¬ 
tirely at variance with the laws of nature, govern¬ 
ing the honey-bee, and in my opinion, they should 
never be compelled to occupy any quarters that 
they have not expressly built as a permanent 
abode. When this lower box, or hive, is filled and 
the upper one is removed to some “dark place, or 
cellar, with a small light in it,” for the purpose of 
