December 31, 1831. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
571 
require very little pruning, only unripe ends need removal. The dwarf 
growing Teas may be liberally thinned out unless buds only are needed, 
and then the more wood left the greater the quantity of - buds produced. 
H.P.’s and Teas established in pots may be pruned for starting. We 
have found them start well in a cool house on a bed filled with leaves 
without the aid of heat unless the weather proves cold and severe. 
Nothing is gained, but puny blooms result if the plants are hurried in 
their early stages. 
We have to state that the article which appeared on page 
582 of the British Bee Journal of the 24th inst., headed li An 
Explanation,” and signed T. W. Cowan, Editor British Bee 
Journal , was premature. We had consented to allow Mr. Cowan 
to publish an explanation in our columns, and a proof print was 
sent to us for approval. This proof print was returned by us on 
the 21st inst. with certain alterations, some sentences being ex¬ 
punged which we considered libellous, and the actual form in 
which we finally agreed to publish it was as follows :— 
An Explanation. 
lo the Editor of the Journal of Horticulture. 
I have had the Journal of Horticulture sent me, and my notice has 
been directed to an editorial explanation on page 485. 
In your zeal to do justice to your correspondent you certainly appear 
to embrace the opportunity of being unjust to your contemporaries. 
When I wrote to you on the 19th September last, “ I can find no 
allusion made in the Record about Punic bees, either editorially 
or by any of its contributors,” I did so in perfect good faith, 
but I frankly admit that I was led into the error by an uninten¬ 
tional oversight on my part. To have admitted that Punic bees had 
been once alluded to editorially in the Record would not have altered 
the nature of the statement, as there was no question about this 
paragraph, but about a reference by your correspondent to an 
article in which there was no mention of Punic bees at all. Any 
unprejudiced person can see that the editorial allusion you quote 
has nothing whatever to do with personal experience, as it is 
couched in general terms, just as the same term “our limited ex¬ 
perience ” i3 daily used in a legitimate way in ordinary language in 
connection with things the writers have had no experience about, but 
about which they are writing from the reports of others. Such lan¬ 
guage is in daily use in all our papers, and it would be a stretch of the 
imagination to attribute personal experience to the writers. 
The context will also show that it is more the expression of the 
limited experience of “ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper,” who had just been 
given as the authority, as he was the only one who had said 
anything about Punic bees, and this in the concurrent number of 
the British Bee Journal. This reply given by Mr. Carr could not 
have been from personal experience, as he had never seen a Punic 
stock, and knew nothing about such bees ; in fact, although Mr. Carr 
was anxious to do Mr. Hewitt full justice, so little value did he 
attach to these bees that there is no reference to them in the 
index, hence the reason for my overlooking the paragraph referred 
to. Mr. Carr seemed perfectly oblivious about this paragraph, and 
I am not surprised at it. The first description of Punic bees 
was given by Mr. Hewitt in B. B. J., on page 271, 1890. He again 
refers to them on page 511, and on page 512 Mr. J. Luck asks 
for results respecting Punic bees from those who have tried them. 
There was not a single response to this appeal from anyone 
who had tried them except Mr. Hewitt himself. He had already 
had full justice done him, and we naturally wanted to hear about 
the experience of someone else besides Mr. Hewitt. No one will be 
surprised that after such a complete failure of reports, Mr. Carr should 
have dismissed the matter from his mind as being of no importance. 
Now, sir, I think I have just cause for complaint. When I 
placed all the papers before you (including the Record of June 
containing the passage now referred to), you promised to have the 
matter investigated, and in your letter to me of the 23rd of September 
you stated, in reply to my letter of the 19th of September : “ When 
Mr. Wright returns to the office I will authorise him to see to 
the matter.” Mr. Wright was to have returned about the 2nd of 
October, and not hearing from you I wrote on the 22nd of October, 
and from your reply on the 23rd of October I gathered that 
you had not made the investigation which you had promised to make, 
although a month had elapsed. Had you made this investigation 
probably the error, which I am sorry was made, would have been 
detected and avoided. 
You refer to this mention of Punic bees, and take the opportunity 
of saying: “In the British Bee Journal for August 27th, 1891, 
page 381, the same Editors , in reply to ‘Inquirer,’ say, ‘We 
know nothing about the so-called Punic bees, and can give no informa¬ 
tion as to their value.” This reply to “ Inquirer ” was written by me 
alone, and I was speaking of my own experience and not of Mr. Carr’s. 
You will see by the British Bee Journal that I am responsible for the 
conduct of this paper, while Mr. Carr conducts the Record, so that there 
was no inconsistency in my reply of not knowing anything about so- 
called Punic bees, and you must disconnect Mr. Carr, the writer of 
the reply in the Record, from my reply in the British Bee Journal 
altogether. But, after all, one of the main points at issue was 
the statement in the article by Mr. Hewitt in the Journal of Horti¬ 
culture on the 3rd of September, in which he says: “They do not say 
that the Punic stock in Mr. Carr’s apiary in the spring of 1890 
was the ‘best and strongest’ he had” (see Record for June, 1890). 
On reference to the article from which the quotation is made by 
Mr. Hewitt, it will be seen that there is no mention whatever about 
Punic bees or to a Punic stock in Mr. Carr’s apiary. The article 
refers to quite another matter altogether—namely, to virgin queens 
sent out to test a wintering theory of the writer’s. I have simply 
to emphasise what I have already said, that I know nothing about 
so-called Punic bees, although I know North African bees very 
well, more especially those of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunis. Some 
of these days I shall have plenty to say about the bees of this 
last place, also about the apiary belonging to a French gentleman 
(whose name, for obvious reasons, I withhold), and who exports 
Tunisian bees, and whose apiary I intend visiting during my rambles 
in Africa, whither I contemplate going for the purpose of finding out 
why the bees of Tunis are not pure, like those of the same varieties 
in Algiers, and why they sometimes show yellow bands. 
By arrangement with the Editor, the above explanation will be 
printed in the Journal of Horticulture. —T. W. Cowan, Ed. British 
Bee Journal , 7th Bee., 1891. 
oWe ought to add, for the information of many of our 
readers who may be unacquainted with these two bee journals 
referred to above, that both of them are announced on their 
wrappers to be, “ Edited by Thomas W. Cowan, F.Gf.S , F.R.M.S., 
&c., and W. Broughton Carr.” 
APIARIAN NOTES. 
The Weather. 
On December 23rd the thermometer rose during the day from 
20’ to 40°. Being calm and mild, many of our stocks took an 
airing, and we were delighted to see the lively Punics on the wing. 
It seemed there was more than a mere flight in the air, as many 
bees scoured the garden in search of flowers. Hellebores are in 
great profusion, and on the eve of flowering ; Snowdrops are 
showing distinctly, also Crocuses ; Wallflowers have never de¬ 
serted us, nor the Primrose, and the Daffodils disdain not to give 
proof they will not allow a gap to be made, but will in succession 
and in season enliven our borders and make the bees merry. 
The Winter Aconite and Anemones will soon also contribute 
their share of usefulness, the last two excepted ; all the others 
mentioned promise to be early and abundant. 
The Past Year. 
The year 1891 has been an eventful one, and bee-keepers have 
shared in the calamities, at least the majority have ; and as is 
the case in the failure of other rural pursuits, the million become 
sufferers. A good bee year is always a good one for horticulture 
and agriculture, and all are benefited thereby. Nothing of im¬ 
portance which is likely to benefit bee-keepers has been brought 
before the public if we except the great development of fruit 
growing in some districts. Extensive orchards are one of the 
mainstays of bee-keepers, and bees are the insurance agents of 
fruit growers, so both must go together. Several prizes have been 
awarded by the B.B.K.A., and several patents have been taken 
out for inventions that were made, used, and sold many years 
since, but blunders such as these never occur amongst men of 
experience. 
The Self Hiver. 
This new invention has been put to crucial tests in some 
places, but has not been as yet a success, nor do I think it likely 
to be. There are easier and profitable methods of managing 
the apiary. But the funny part is, and prompts the question, 
why a self hiver, when the advocates have for so long advised 
non-swarming bees, non-swarming hives, and the prevention by 
giving timeous super space. If swarming could be prevented there 
would be no need for self hivers. The Journal of Horticulture is 
