August 30, 1SS-8. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
205 
hives gives quantity. After my supers or sections are in place, a 
board is screwed on the top of the case, which secures, and at the same 
time ventilates the bees, the mouth-piece is closed and the shutter 
drawn beneath. The latter is done a day or two previous to re¬ 
moving, as it accustoms the bees to the airway, preventing them 
on the journey from rushing to the floor and succumbing through 
attempting to get out, as is commonly the case when not opened 
until starting. 
When secured in this manner all that is necessary to do at 
starting is to close the doorway, bundle up the coverings, then load 
upon a lorry and take to the station, where a truck is in waiting for 
them. The truck holds upwards of fifty of these tidy hives, and 
the cost of taking them fifty miles by rail is about Gd. each, and the 
conveyance at the other end half of that, to a distance from the 
station of about half a mile, when in a short time the bees are at 
work, and this year, by the precautions used, I only observed one 
lost bee. 
The wild Thyme was abundant, and its fragrance was welcomed 
a long distance. The weather improved on the same day the bees 
were removed, and the following one was the best honey gathering 
day of the whole season, the bees falling heavily before they could 
reach the alighting board. A piece of felt tacked to it allows 
many falling short to creep to the hive in safety. With a con¬ 
tinuation of the improved weather we have enjoyed for some days 
since the 8th there will still be an abundant harvest of honey. On 
the evening of the 12th and throughout the 13th a heavy rain fell, 
accompanied with a bitter high "wind. During the month of July 
the ice was a quarter of an inch thick, and the Potatoes are com¬ 
pletely destroyed. An earthquake was heard, and felt too, and 
not a humble bee is to be seen. 
It is not so very long since a correspondent twitted us that they, 
the B.B.K.A., would cross the border to teach us bee-keeping, but 
like the one who said he “ showed the Scotch the mysteries of the 
bee hive,” after killing most of the bees of a number of hives it 
has been a failure. It is quite pleasing to me to see them crossing 
the border to get more wrinkles, and to fraternise with us and our 
bees on Scottish heath. Not only are bee-keepers coming north, 
but many Londoners are taking advantage of recruiting their health 
on and around the moors of Leadhills, where I saw a quantity of 
the coveted auriferous metal, and where I hope the bees will 
gather much of the amber nectar to their masters. 
I wonder what the lecturer I heard at a late show would have 
thought of the stinging propensities of bees had he experienced 
mine after being set down at the Heather. Although I was treating 
them kindly and with great courage they were furious, which did not 
astonish me so much as the same lecturer did when preaching the 
docility of bees while the manipulator was in full retreat! The 
numerous crosses have much to answer for in this respect, and per¬ 
fect docility will never be attained unless some means are taken to 
have none but true Carniolians. But what is the reason that some 
of my Carniolians are vicious this year, and that with others they 
are proving themselves an eccentric race ? Simply because they 
are not pure. Certain dealers in England have been sending out 
queens said to be Benton’s, but who never received a queen from 
that gentleman. It is to be hoped that this will be stopped by bee¬ 
keepers taking the hint, and buying their amiable working bees 
j from a reliable dealer. I know whereof I speak in this matter, 
having experienced much disappointment by having spurious 
j queens in my possession. I saw the progeny of a queen working 
on the Heather that was sent me from Austria only some five 
weeks ago, and its general appearance is very different from the 
I progeny of those I had from vendors in England. The state of 
my hives before removing them to the Heather presents some 
singular results. Octagons, two supers filled with comb, 16 lbs. 
1 Surplus crossed Syrians, the most a surplus of 10 lbs. from a prime 
swarm. Crossed Cyprians very heavy, but not in supers ; have not 
i been fed for eleven years, and was never touched since October till 
August. No swarms from them this year. 
Carniolians swarmed, but were not excessive. Early swarms 
were in good order, but those after the longest day have dwindled 
down to a mere handful. All breeds the same, a striking example 
of the contracting and stimulating process. Owing to the un¬ 
toward weather, just what we have warned bee-keepers so long 
against, this year has given us proof positive and fully demon¬ 
strated the absurdity of advising bees to be kept in small 
10-standard frames, and the greater folly of reducing them to G or 
so on the beginning of the honey harvest, as if we knew when it 
will commence ; but bee-keepers are gradually losing faith in their 
would-be teachers, and grapple with facts coming under their own 
observation. My pure Syrians have made no progress since the 
early spring, always strong, but always losing, and, owing to the 
weather, unable to gather surplus, but how they work at the 
Heather is something grand and requires to be witnessed to be 
fully appreciated. We wish for a continuance of this weather, 
which will make the whilom light hives with their teeming multi¬ 
tudes great weights, and which will be duly recorded by—A 
Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
APICULTURAL NOTES. 
CHANGING QUEENS IN THE AUTUMN. 
“ Felix,” in his excellent article advising the removal of the old 
queen and substituting a young one in her place, omitted saying how it 
was to be done with the least risk or trouble. May I be allowed to 
point out that the Hallamshire law enables this to be done with the 
least trouble and no risk whatever ? All one has to do is to see that 
there is no brood or eggs when he removes the old queen ; if there is, 
then he must put the combs containing it into another hive forty-eight 
hours afterwards, or any time before next May for what it matters. 
The young queen can be dropped in at any time of the day or night, and 
no more notice need be taken of her. In most apiaries there will be some 
stocks headed with young queens it is not intended to remove ; if so, 
the brood or eggs found can be given to them. The young queens can 
safely be kept a week or more in a Benton mailing cage in a drawer or 
cupboard ready. 
This law is making headway across the Atlantic, where “ time 
savers ” and “ risk preventors ” are in demand. The editor of the 
Canadian Bee Journal seemed struck with Simmins’s system as a 
“ time saver,” removing the old queen in the afternoon and dropping 
the fresh queen in the same night, and talked of giving it a triaf. This 
system, which is Mr. Pond’s re-dressed, has been thoroughly tested both 
by T. Bonner Chambers, Esq., F.L.S.,and myself, with the result already 
published—viz., the fresh queen is unmolested until the seventh day at 
least. She never begins laying before the eleventh, even if in full lay when 
introduced ; that 40 per cent, are missing before the twentieth day ; and 
that very often, if not always, a daughter of hers takes her place 
before the twenty-eighth day. If anyone doubts this, let him mark or 
clip the wing of the queen introduced, and I will guarantee he does not 
find one-third reigning four weeks after, though all will be found safe (?) 
on the seventh day. Last autumn I drove the bees from three skeps—two 
for one man and one for another ; captured the old black queens, and 
about midnight I dropped in from the top of each a young Cyprian 
queen, daughters of imported mothers, but cross-mated. Hybrid 
Cyprians duly appeared in each stock, and being a long distance away 
from my apiary there was no suspicion of there being stray young bees. 
When spring came one was queenless, and the other two were headed 
with hybrid drone-laying Cyprian queens. The queenless one was given 
a Cyprian queen in accordance with the Hallamshire law about the end 
of May, and the black bees were still very numerous in the middle 
of July. 
In one of my letters I mentioned about a young queen hatching out 
in my hand—a daughter of the queen introduced, the old queen being- 
safe. Well, this queen has been in the hive ever since till yesterday, and 
she has shown no faulty signs. These are cases I am sure about. In the 
case of the three skeps young queens were reared which killed their 
heavy egg-laying mothers ; then, there being no drones about, two- 
failed to mate and the third was lost. In the British Bee Journal for 
July 12th an Irishman is quite jubilant over his success in introducing a 
queen a la Simmins he obtained of Messrs. Neighbour. On the third 
day after dropping her in he found and cut out two sealed queen cells ; 
on the eleventh day he found some eggs, but no brood, and neither did he 
succeed in finding the queen. The eggs might have been deposited by 
laying workers, though more probably by the queen, as everything is 
just my experience—first queen cells, second no eggs before the eleventh 
day. The editor does not point out that it was more of a failure than a 
success ; had she been introduced by the Hallamshire law there would 
have been a lot of sealed brood by that time. 
THE GLASS SECTION INVENTION. 
“ Felix ” seems to be giving me a piece of his humour over this. 
Allow me to inform h'm I know quite well what the Patent Office can 
give ; my name is enrolled amongst those who seek its protection more. 
