Deoember 15, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTaGE GARDENER. 
527 
the entrances, and they must therefore suffer great loss. 
Ihose who have experience to guide them may follow 
either plan, possibly with equal success, but those who 
have not yet had much practical experience in wintering 
bees will do well to close the entrances by perforated 2 inc, 
and also to shade their hives, opening every entrance at 
the earliest possible moment. Naturally, if the entrance 
is not closed until the sun has risen and warmed the hive 
there may- possibly be a little disturbance, but the en¬ 
trances of it always to be closed if possible at night or in 
the early morning, and there is no special occasion to 
remove either the zinc or board until the bees may safely 
be allowed to fly. J 
The greatest care must be taken to exclude mice from 
hives in winter. They not only destroy the combs by 
gnawing them to pieces, but they kill many bees, and 
otherwise injure the stock by exciting the bees when they 
ought to be perfectly quiet. In cold weather, when the 
clusters are compact, great injury may be occasioned. 
.Lessening the entrances, trapping, and other means of 
either exclusion or extirpation must at once be resorted 
to if there is a suspicion that mice will enter, or have 
already entered, the hives. A sure sign of their presence 
is when pieces of comb somewhat larger than usually 
carried out of the hive are seen lying on the front board, 
it these are seen it is almost a certain sign of gnawed 
combs and other mischief, and the bee-keeper must con¬ 
sequently, during the winter and early spring months be 
continually on the alert if he sees this flag of distress. 
Ihose who have experienced the depredations of a single 
mouse will need no spur to induce them to take proper 
precautions. Those who have not yet been favoured by 
a visit from these small but destructive creatures will 
possibly, when they least expect it, find that what has 
never happened before may happen within a very few 
weeks or even days. —Felix. 
ODOURLESS FOUL BROOD. 
AM macb obliged to “ A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper,” page 480, for 
aking me to task for claiming too much in connection with the above 
nWp? 1 P retend . t P be above making errors, therefore I am always 
fied tW W l hen a mistak ° I 8 Pointed out to me. Still, I am not yet satis¬ 
fied that I am wrong. I did not, nor do I, claim that the “ principle ” is 
lfave l re C n 0 fl Very i’ , do claim tbe way 1 carl T it out as being novel. I 
k and ® tudled niuch on foul brood, yet I never saw or heard of 
my way being tried. If our friend can refer me to a publication con- 
bur vknr T Shal be grateful to b' nl - I always understood that Wood- 
8 '" Jones way was to starve the bees in confinement. I tried the 
on1nff ' t S °f 0n c ° ndemn , ed lt; when I saw the bees “ unstarved ” at the 
nnt a f f four , t , een day ®- Mr - Jones now admits that twenty-one days will 
; then putting them on sheets of foundation is not the 
wav k llfr!' ? 0u , t ’ f as J- J- hoot fi nds to his cost, as well as others. My 
way is the least trouble and expense of any plan, and cures the 
have k mns Another thing, keeping the bees in confinement until they 
thev also be e rH a p ^ eIr ^ is n0t the way to cure the T^ens, should 
tney also be diseased.—A Hallamshire Bee-keeper. 
PLACING BEES AT THE HEATHER—THE DISTANCE 
THEY WILL FLY. 
and^f T^nari h i aS bC T, n fl ! lly Seated by “ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper,’- 
S A Lanarkshire^ Bee-keeper” has also referred to the matter 
1 leather 7011 W11 kmdIy allow me to state my experience of bees at the 
I havp S bad tw 6 , had , m T bees placed among the Heither ; secondly, 
, ave bad them placed about half a mile distant ; and, thirdly, I al- 
° remain at home. My garden is about 500 feet above sea 
fu,™, 18 a 2T aduaI rise to the moors of another 500 feet, and a 
1800 fpp(- hl K S - f I° m th f background with an elevation of from 1500 to 
YTiom if’ we placed our hives where bee-keepers from time im- 
? bad placed theirs, just among the Heather in the shelter of a 
some 900 feet above the sea level. Here my bees never 
d prv^w’ fii'sbed super being obtained. I observed that a 
Jtead W a'lS. be °' kec P er °f my acquaintance placed his hive at a farm 
steading about 4 mile distant to the north-west of where mine used to 
iifi, atld at a Iower leyel bv 200 feet, with the advantage of a good 
WKttpV T Waj ’, an< ? always sec °red plenty of fine Heather honey from 
his hives. I resolved to follow his example, and the next season placed 
my hives alongside of his. The result exceeded my most sanguine ex¬ 
pectations, and as each season comes round I place my hives in the same 
positions with equally satisfactory results. The bees have a fli-ht of 
about a mile before reaching the main body of the Heather. 
In 1880 a neighbour placed his hives about 2 £ miles back from the same 
Heather, with the result that he did not secure a pound of super honey ■- 
while from my hives placed within a mile of the Heather I secured supers' 
of 10 lbs., 20 lb3., 25 lbs., &c. Last season he placed his hives beside 
mine and secured supers from every one. The distance from home to 
the stance at the Heather is only 4‘ miles (bee flight), yet I never had 
returns of bees. I he bees left at home did little more than sustain 
weight, and only in one instance did I secure a super, and it was princi¬ 
pally filled, from Lime trees, with cells of Heather honey through the 
combs. .This I believe was gathered from patches of Heather growing in 
plantations near home. During the past two seasons I have been enabled 
to visit my hives at the Heather twice a week, some weeks oftener, and 
in all sorts of weather, but never found bees carrying honey except on 
fine days. 
The result of my observations over several years is to place your 
hives in the most sheltered and convenient situation available, but not 
more than a mile from the main body of the Heather, so as to allow the 
bees a nice easy flight ; and that no advantage is gained by placing bees 
too near the Heather, as they do not feed in the immediate neighbourhood 
of their hives.— Mid-Lothian. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
J. Carter & Co., 237 and 238, High Holborn, Loudon.— Ulustra'ed Vade 
Mecumfor 1888. (Coloured plates.) 
Harrison, Barber & Co., 18, Queen Victoria Street, London, E.C .—List nf 
Chemical Manures. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS 
°8 5 AH correspondence should be directed either to “The 
Editor” or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. 
or members of the staff often remain unopened un¬ 
avoidably. We request that no one Mull write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet Questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than tM'o or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannct reply to questions through the 
post, and we do not undertake to return rejected communica¬ 
tions. 
Book (N. D.). —If you will oblige with your name and address, not for 
publication, we will endeavour to supply you with the particulars required. 
Chrysanthemum Sport ( B. E. F.).\— The variety Mrs. For.-yth i 8 
synonymous with White Christine, and your “ sport ” is a reversion to the 
pink form of Christine, and it therefore could not receive a distinct name. 
Chrysanthemum Shows ( Chorlei /).—We are greatly obliged to gar¬ 
deners and amateurs who favour us with reports of local shows, and we are 
always glad to insert such not ces when they leach us within reasona'le 
time of the dites of the exhibitions. In the present case, however, by 
the time the report appeared in our next issue nearly a month would have 
elapsed since the show was held. 
Lady Downe’s Grapes (J. S .).—As you give no reference to the 
article to which you refer, the insertion of your “ omission ” would scarcely 
have a tendency to promote what you desire. It is important that salient 
facts be kept in vi -w in communications on important subjects, or they 
necessarily lose much of their force, if not leading to erroneous conclusions. 
Perhaps you had better restate the entire case. Postscripts two or three, 
weeks old are regarded as somewhat out of date. 
Tomato Cardinal (Deal). —We cannot answer your question better than 
by citing a paragraph from the Chiswick report of the trial of Tomatoes 
conducted this season. The varieties and synonyms were determined by 
the Fruit Committee of the Royal Horticultural Society, and, as you will see, 
Cardinal was considered identical with Perfection, this being certificated :— 
‘ Perfection (Farquhar); Livingstone’s Peifection (Rutley & Silverlock ; 
Livingstone’s Favourite.(Farquhar) ; Livingstone’s Favourite (Dean); Per- 
fection (Veitch) ; Reading Perfection ; President Cleveland (Farquhar); 
Cardinal (Farquhar); Stamfordian (Veitch); Mayflower (Veitch); Op- 
timus (Benary), Red Tomato, from Sandwich Islands (Carter); Webb’s 
Jubilee (Webb); Jubilee (Nutting).” 
Vines at Garston (Dumfries). —We have referred to the volumes of 
eight, nine, and ten years ago, and caa find no such record, so that the 
subject is either omitted from the index or you are wrong in your sup¬ 
position as to the date. You cannot exp’ot us to conduct a tedious search 
through the columns of another journal in the absence of more precise 
guidance than ycu have afforded. If Mr. Cowan inserted Vine eyes in 
Ma-ch, grew the canes, matured them, and cut rips fruit from them within 
