370 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE OARDENER. 
[ May S, 1888. 
give the best returns, but are as often as not in an unfit state to 
gather much surplus when the Heather is in bloom. This unfit¬ 
ness may arise through the season being unfavourable during June 
■and July, causing the bees to restrict or wholly suspend breeding by 
the middle of the latter month. An aged queen will have the same 
«fEect. Then owing to these and other untoward circumstances the 
bees may have dwindled, comparatively speaking, to a mere hand- 
'ful of bees unfit to collect honey enough for their own immediate 
wants. Through the same or similar causes non-swarmed hives 
may dwindle down. 
No time of the year is so important for the bee-keeper to have 
his hives properly attended to as the middle of July, whether 
lit be to put them in order for the Heather or, where that is not 
available, to stand the severest winter’s campaign, and come out in 
■spring in a fit state to gather honey from “ every opening flower.’’ 
How to put hives into that satisfactory state, which in a good 
season means a profitable one, and with the least trouble or expense, 
I will describe in as concise a manner as possible. 
It is to be hoped that no bee-keeper has ignored the advice so 
often given to have at least as many nuclei with young but fertile 
queens as the number of stocks he intends to keep. Now, while 
the queen of any hive is, according to Nature, always desirous to 
■deposit eggs in the cells from December until June, and the bees 
are as anxious to nurse aud bring all these eggs to maturity, even 
to the risk of losing their own lives through impending want, it is 
different with them after the day turns. The queen begins to 
flag, and the bees have a tendency to eat the eggs, and eat or draw 
out the immature grub, and this, too, even though the hive is rich 
in honey, but the weather dull and unfavourable, the hive being 
still further reduced by the bees’ propensity to rob, which they 
'almost invariably do on the decline of honey gathering. 
At no time during the -sybole season is feeding so important 
(except in urgent cases of want) as it is at this juncture, and the 
bee-keeper should not neglect it. Nuclei having young queens are 
not so liable to discontinue breeding or draw their brood as hives 
having done service throughout the year. There seems to be an 
instinct in them that increase of population is not only desirable 
but necessary. It is not desirable, however, that young queens 
intended for the following year should he encouraged to lay ex- 
eessively. It is better to watch that none of the eggs or brood is 
destroyed, and encourage the aged queen about to be deposed to lay 
to the fullest extent by feeding constantly, but in moderation, 
because the management given at other times is different now. As 
the breeding goes gradually on in both hives (which applies to any 
number), transfer the combs containing the most advanced brood 
from the hive containing the old queen, and insert them in the hive 
of the nucleus (providing no disease is present), at such intervals 
that no brood will be chilled, which should be accomplished in from 
oight to ten days. Meanwhile add sheets of foundation to the old 
■stock, and feed, to encourage comb-building, these newly built 
■combs taking the place of the older ones transferred to the nucleus 
at the end of the season. 
The eggs and brood of the two queens will have built up a stock 
much stronger than any stock with but one queen could possibly be. 
After all the combs containing eggs or brood have heen removed 
from the old stock, depose the queen by the carbolic process, and 
with due precautions join both hives and bees together, but not 
until the bees of the old stock have been queenless at least twenty- 
four hours. If the bee-keeper is expert at the business he may 
perform the whole operation at the first manipulation, but the 
foregoing details, if properly performed, will prove satisfactory to 
the greatest novice. 
DISEASES OF BEES. 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper ” some time since made a sugges¬ 
tion as likely to have been the cause of the death of my bees at 
the moors. I beg to inform him that he is wide of the mark. Had 
the deaths arisen through either the form or structure of the hive 
I could easily have detected it, nor was the weather during August 
anything like chilling the bees to death within their hives. Hives 
having their frames across the entrances are certainly not the most 
suitable kind of hives for bees and keeping them healthy, or working 
them to proper advantage. But do not think they would cause 
so wholesale a destruction. It is in detail they are defective, 
beginning with a little evil, and ending in a large one. 
I once saw twenty hives, three of them being the “ Combina¬ 
tion ” type ; they were the only three that succumbed to the severity 
of the winter. I was not sorry for the owner, as he was perfectly 
cognisant of the great pains Mr. Woodbury took to take evidence 
and collate every fact relating to the subject for the benefit of the 
readers of this Journal, and denounced the hive having its frames 
across the entrance, which was also our verdict. In other matters 
touched upon by “ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper ” I quite agree. 
Some eight or ten years ago an acquaintance wrote a letter to 
me stating he had been at the moors with his bees. Owing to the 
hot day his hives had suffered greatly, and he was afraid some were 
ruined. Previous to that I had examined the ventilators of his 
hives which were deficient, but my advice to remedy matters 
had not been taken. In answer to his letter I wrote informing 
him that owing to the overheating, “ foul brood ” (a disease he 
said he had never seen) was almost certain to appear in a virulent 
form. The same autumn I was with him examining some hives of 
a friend. The moment I turned the first one up foul brood in its 
most virulent form presented itself, and the stench from it before 
it was inverted indicated the plague. Yet, bad as the case was, 
he denounced my action when I tore the combs out and buried them. 
It was dry foul brood and was not infectious, just the very 
opposite from my experience and that of “ A Hallamshire Bee¬ 
keeper,” and I agree with the latter that in this stage it is most 
infectious. 
The following spring the same gentleman asked me to see his 
bees, as they were not working as well as he wished. On an inspec¬ 
tion being made foul brood was rampant in many of his hives. I 
advised him to stamp out the disease at once, which was again un¬ 
heeded, and word again came to me that they had done better than 
expected. By the next spring matters were even worse. Not a 
single hive was free from the disease. I have not seen them 
since. 
The various diseases that bees are subject to may be classed 
under the following heads—Infectious, Constitutional, and Climatic. 
The first ought to be stamped out on its first appearance, and every¬ 
thing connected with the hive disinfected and the hees purged. 
Overheating and chills must be guarded against as the best pre¬ 
ventives. The contents of the hive should be destroyed, and the 
ground for a considerable distance around the hive turned over. 
The constitutional diseases will to a great extent remedy them¬ 
selves, but no queens nor drones should be raised from such hives. 
The last-named disease, will, I fear, continue with us until these 
foreign races most subject to it, if not the only ones ever affected, 
become thoroughly acclimatised. 
That some of the diseases we are experiencing for the first time 
are due to climate and constitution, or a combination of both, we 
need have little doubt. We never saw the common bees attacked 
by some of these diseases. It is singular, and perhaps worth 
recording, that during my long experience with the Carniolians I 
have never seen or known a diseased stock, but neither have I had 
foul brood amongst my other stocks for a longer time, or, might I 
say, since I made a complete revolution with the ventilating floor, 
the best of all antidotes to the common form of foul brood. 
Then if bee-keepers would think more for themselves—leaving 
not a stone unturned until they had investigated the cause and 
nature of every disease that came within their observation—bee¬ 
keeping would be to them and their neighbours more pleasant as 
well as more profitable. Study well, and become impressed with 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper’s ” remarks, particularly his closing 
paragraph at page 140, and they will not regret it.— A Lanark¬ 
shire Bee-keeper. 
