December 80, 1886. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
591 
for the present. Those partially pruned in early autumn and repotted 
will be in gool condition at their roots. These, if plunged, will, by the 
aid of the bottom heat afforded from the litter and leaves, soon commence 
•activity, and as the days lengthen, with increased heat they will grow 
luxuriantly and produce their large beautiful trusses early in the season, 
and afterwards yield a good autumn supply of flowers. Young stock 
struck in autumn and now in 2-inch pots may be transferred into 4-inch 
pots ; drain them liberally, and be careful that the eoil is well warmed 
before they are repotted. The compost may consist of peat and a liberal 
■dash of coarse silver sand. Water these with great care, but do Dot 
evringe their foliage at present. 
Caladinms and Gloxinias .—A few of these may now be turned out of 
the old soil in which they have been resting, and either placed in small 
pots according to their size, or placed together in pans amongst leaf 
tnou d until they show signs of growth. The last method is the best, and 
the pans or boxes containing them can be plunged amongst the large 
plants trained upon trellises. A few Achimenes may also be started, but 
the tubers of these may be laid in good soil in pans, for they will have to 
remain in them for some time to supply cuttings for making up pots and 
'“ as “?* 8 - These plants do well in any light rich compost. 
Cyclamens .—Attention must now be directed towards raising the 
stock of plants for another year. Seedlings must be carefully pricked 
singly into 2-inch pots filled with equal parts of loam and leaf mould and 
a good sprinkling of sand. Supply with tepid water, and plunge the 
small pots closely together on a shelf near the glass in sand or cocoa-nut 
fibre refuse. They must be kept in a temperature of 60° and not allowed 
o become dry. If the plants are insufficient for the stock required more 
seed should be sown at once. From seed sown now grand plants in 
o-inch pots may be produced in twelve months. 
Roses. If a bed of leaves, or these and litter, can he made up in 
„ 0U8 , e f° r standing the pots of Hybrid Perpetual Roses upon, and 
it finally plunged they will break strongly. The heat from the bed will 
be ample for some time, and they will grow much stronger and remain 
cleaner than if subjected solely to fire heat. The gentle warmth from 
the leaves encourages root-action, and the shoots possess a healthiness and 
vigour that it is scarce’y possible to obtain by any other method. Young 
plants of lea varieties that were, rooted in early autumn, and now in 
o-inch pots, may be placed into 6-inch, and if stood with the H.P.’s, or 
m a temperature of 50°, will quickly throw up from the base and produce 
flowers if they are desired. 
1 
HE BEE-KEEPER. 
s 
SEEP MANAGEMENT. 
Not a few specimens of the old-fashioned bee-keeper of a 
former age remain in the less densely populated districts of 
this country, showing by contrast the great advantages which 
new methods of management have given over the sulphur 
pit, at one period generally in use when the bees had to be 
deprived of their stores. It is unnecessary to point out the 
manifest advantages of the modern system, but for the 
benefit of those who have hitherto followed the dark and 
weary road travelled by the apiarians of the earlier part of 
this century, I will, at the expense of some necessary repeti¬ 
tion, give a few plain instructions to those who desire to save 
their bees while appropriating their honey. 
It is quite lost labour to smear the inside of a hive into 
which a swarm is to be placed; the sugar, the beer, and the 
cream so commonly made use of may be saved and put to 
some more practical use. The hive must be clean and sweet, 
and the bees will then stay and build their combs, thankful 
to begin their housekeeping afresh under such happy auspices. 
Occasionally, it is true, a swarm persists in leaving the hive 
into which it has been shaken, and when bees are obstinate 
they seem, like men, to continue their obstinacy until the 
circumstances have been changed. Why it is has never yet, 
so far as I have heard, been explained ; but when bees refuse 
to stay in one hive and they are placed in another apparently 
the same as the former in every respect, the swarm will 
remain content and happy and give no further trouble. It 
18 9 ui t 0 unnecessary to make the hideous sounds formerly 
attendant upon the issue of a swarm ; they do no good, and 
are not of themselves sufficiently interesting to be continued 
unless they are practically useful. 
Many of the straw skeps now in use are far too small 
tor profitable management, and at least nine-tenths of the 
larger size are less profitable than they ought to be, because 
the hole in the top of the hive connecting the brood chamber 
and the super is too small to afford a ready passage to the 
many thousand bees continually seeking ingress and egress 
when the honey glut is at its height. To talk to bees was 
formerly a general custom in villages, and even now not a 
few instances could no doubt be found in which the owner of 
a few stocks talks to them—as a village bee-keeper said to me 
the other day—"like Christians.” "Pretty creatures, did 
they be disturbed ?” but they do not treat them " like 
Christians!” 
When we see in a garden a few stocks of bees in a dilapi¬ 
dated condition our advice is—unless the man is more than 
ordinarily intelligent and apt in learning—to allow the bees 
to swarm naturally, and then place them in new hives, so 
that even in that, the first year, some little surplus may be 
taken, and in addition a foundation is laid for a profitable 
apiary in the future. Artificial swarming is very useful, and 
when performed by men of experience is a safe way to in¬ 
crease stocks naturally without allowing them to swarm and 
being compelled to run the hazard of losing the swarm by its 
coming off when nobody is at hand to see and hive it; but 
for a novice to attempt to take an artificial swarm is rather 
a dangerous experiment. Indeed, in America artificial in¬ 
crease does not appear by any means to be in universal 
favour, and even some prominent bee-keepers of this country 
prefer to have a natural increase with its attendant hazard 
rather than compel the bees to leave their homes before they 
are ready to form a colony. After the first year increase 
should be entirely prevented if surplus honey in supers is 
required. How to prevent swarming has so often been 
pointed out that it is quite useless to go over the same ground 
again. 
In feeding bees there is a great danger, lest by the care¬ 
less exposure of sweets the vice of the honey bee should be 
aroused and a raid be made by the bees of another hive upon 
the one to which the food is given. Great precaution must 
therefore be used, and the greatest possible care taken not to 
spill the slightest drop of syrup in or around the hives. 
Dryness and warmth conduce to safe wintering. The 
coverings of hives must be therefore of such a kind as to 
admit of packing with warm material and throwing off the 
wet; but the floorboard must not be so large that wet can 
lodge upon it and trickle down into the hive. Mica must be 
excluded, the hive kept clean, and no food given unless the 
hive is absolutely in want during the winter months. If 
food must be given a cake of candy on the top is best at this 
time of the year, but in spring a copious supply of syrup 
must be supplied, for bees are careful insects, and if they find 
that food runs short they will be careful not to produce extra 
mouths when there is nothing wherewith to feed them— 
Felix. 
SMALL v. LARGE HIVES. 
In my endeavour to show how the cottager can get his honey from 
his straw skeps in a more saleable form by the adoption of sections, I 
hope they may not conclude that I am an advocate of small hives as 
compared with large ones. The price of honey has now fallen to such 
a low figure that it can scarcely be advisable to urge cottagers or anyone 
else to lay out much money on costly hives with the hopes of soon 
making a fortune with them. The fact of the matter is, bees must now 
be managed on the most economic principles to get much pay out of 
them. But apart altogether from the question of profit, bee-keeping is 
extremely interesting, and their presence in the cottage garden is gene¬ 
rally a sign of industry. The honey produced, if it brings but little in 
the market compared with what it did a few years ago, is always wel¬ 
comed by the cottager’s wife, who will sweeten many a butterless crust 
for her hungry children. Let cottagers who have small hives use them 
to the best advantage, not in aiming to have a great number of them, 
but by uniting his late “ casts” to others, and so make up a less number 
strong in numbers, and with favourable weather at the right time he 
may depend on a fair return for his labour. 
Let those, however, who are in want of new hives get one large one 
if it costs as much as two small ones, and be content with half the num¬ 
ber. Large straw skeps are now supplied by dealers cheap and good, 
and of sufficient size to carry a tray of eighteen 1 lb. sections without 
projecting beyond the stock hive. But there are many ways by which a 
handy man may make very good hives out of very simple and cheap 
materials. As an illustration of this I have made asketch (fig. 87) of one that 
I made two years ago. I procured two large cheese boxes at the grocers’ 
