140 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ February 18, 1886. 
supplied in a liquid form it would be at once available as food 
or store. The swarm that issued on April 1st was fed with 
syrup. The bees seemed to thrive, but I noticed a few days after 
they became uneasy, running in and out of the hive, and along 
the flight board. Clearly the queen was lost. The bees were 
very busy, however, formed comb along five bars, and resisted 
fiercely every effort at examination. I resolved to await the 
issue. Food ceased to be taken down, the bees left the hive, and 
I found no less than three royal cells in the comb they had made, 
and a number of drone as well as worker cells. What did this 
mean ? That I had not secured the queen in hiving, she had 
died or been lost early, hence the effort to raise another with 
drones for the purpose of continuance of tbe race. One bive, 
though it had plenty of bees when I introduced the flour cake 
and candy, they all died, clear proof that they had stood a long 
siege, and had cast out the slain from day to day. Another 
hive, with bees taken from a neighbour in the previous autumn, 
also died, their heads all stuck in the cells, and so perished of 
cold one frosty night in April. They had plenty of honey in 
store, having been placed in a hive, the bees of which had 
succumbed to Ligurians in August twelve months before. This 
stock had lost its queen, as the bees were very irritable, and 
guarded the entrance with remarkable tenacity. 
This was a poor beginning of the season 1885. The bees 
commenced swarming the first week in June, a galvanised 
bucket I used to get them into the hive with was filled to over¬ 
flowing, and I had four such. I supered the four, and had four 
twenty-one sections of 2 lbs. each, filled with honey. I had other 
swarms and second and third swarms at intervals up to the 
middle of July, which it was said would come to nothing, but I 
had an idea, derived from Mr. Pettigrew, that second swarms 
were as good as the first the year following their existence as a 
separate colony. Why should a second swarm be good for 
nothing P The queen is young, and if by judicious care in feed¬ 
ing we get sufficient bees for warmth so as to winter safely, I 
cannot see why it should not do well. Of course, if feeding is 
not intended, then I doubt not it will be worth little, if 
anything. 
Altogether I had nine swarms, eight natural and one driven, 
I think is queenless, but it took food well in autumn, yet now 
shows a restlessness and activity which I do not like to see early 
in February. It has, however, plenty of bees, but I shall not 
make an examination until the weather gets warmer, nor feed 
before the middle of March I tried to make another, and 
failed, and having two hives that did not swarm—only one that 
gave the swarm on the 1st April—I had nine swarms out of 
seven hives, and except the driven one all is well with them. 
They are very quiet, and the weight says they have store on 
hand in plenty. The Crocuses, however, are showing colour, 
and if the weather prove genial we may soon hear the bees’ glad 
hum. 
I wish to return to the swarm that issued on the 1st April. 
The stock was strong it issued from, and the old queen was 
deposed to make room for the new one. It is likely, food being 
scarce, that the emigration was insisted upon by the workers, and 
they drove her out 8he was not in the cluster when hived, for 
I saw her majesty on the ground, and she took wing and rose to 
the pole on which the bees bad clustered, and I thought I 
secured her at the second attempt at getting them into the hive, 
if not they would have left the hive and returned to the parent 
stock. They did not, however, but set to work and formed the 
comb with royal cells as before described. The old stock giving 
the swarm on the 1st of April did not swarm again, which 
might be due to my having supered it, and which the bees filled 
with honey. 
Two swarms one dty issued together and joined, and as 
they were first swarms I had four (rather five, as I shall 
show presently) stocks that gave no increase whatever, and 
really only had five that were profitable as regards honey —i e, 
for first swarms and one stock, or that from which the swarm 
issued on the 1st April. Six gave nine swarms—eight natural and 
one artificial. Though I supered the two that made no effort at 
swarming, no honey was stored therein. They neither swarmed 
nor stored honey in the supers. The queens were not prolific. 1 do 
not think so One was a taken-up stock of the previous autumn put 
in a hive filled with store, and defunct through over-swarming and 
driving; the other was a late swarm put in a hive also con¬ 
taining plenty of store, everything ready to hand. I had 
swarms later that were put in empty hives, and there swarmed. 
I had read somewhere that these hives were the kind to put 
bees into if you had them, as the comb, to say nothing of the 
honey, would give the new comers a start. It seemed reasonable, 
but I do not consider it is, for the bees in swarming are gorged 
with honey, and the first thing they do is to disgorge and form 
comb. The bees do not do well in such hives, and as regards 
swarms are, I think, best left alone, giving only comb formation, 
feeding and leaving the bees to form their own nest. It answers 
in autumn for taken-up bees, but even these are placed at a 
disadvantage when in hives where the bees have died out 
through loss of queen or robbing, especially the former, for the 
queen being lost the bees not only keep on storing honey, but 
pollen, or bee-bread; the cells that would have contained brood, 
had the queen lived, are crammed with this grub food in anticipa¬ 
tion of a mother being reared, no doubt, and it hardens, giving 
the bees a great amount of labour in clearing it out in spring 
to make room for brood. They carry it out in pellets nearly as 
large as themselves, which must entail much labour, and inter¬ 
fere with the economy of the colony. I only tried one attempt 
at brood-spreading, it was the first, and for some time to come 
will be the last it appears to be the best way to secure foul 
brood. 
When the extractors—there was a trader that practised it 
with over thirty stocks within half a mile—commenced extract¬ 
ing, I kept a shap look out with scouts to inform mo of the 
doings of the enemy, and within twenty-four hours the 
Ligurians and half-breeds put in appearance and took a close 
scrutiny of every hive. Some fraternised with the blacks and 
lived on apparently good terms until autumn, when they dis¬ 
appeared. There was no robbing, I kept them on a war footing 
—viz., strong, and narrowed the entrances in anticipation of an 
attack, and it certainly rendered them safe, as the assailants 
soon were seen running with outstretched wing along the ground 
away from the hives. It was tried again at the second extraction 
— i.e., the robbing by the Ligurians and cross breds, the Car- 
niolians, though scouting, did not attack, and proved a failure 
both as to robbing and fraternising. The next news I heard 
were that the trader was going to move his bees, and now they 
are gone. It is said that it does not pay, I presume on the 
extracting principle, but the chief reason, I think, was the ex¬ 
tracting caused the bees to sting everybody for some distance 
around, therefore were a nuisance. If the beesjdid not pay in 
honey there was the sale of swarms or stocks, and hives 
were no inconsiderable manufacture ; trade must have been 
slack if the bees did not pay in one shape or other. But I 
feel certain that feeding with syrup and extracting it, it may be 
along with pure nectar, is not the way to make anything pay. I 
do not think syrup can be converted into honey even by bees, 
and it is this that has brought down the price to (id. per lb., and 
tells so disastrously against the keeper of bees upon honourable 
principles— i.e., selling honey, not syrup. Syrup costs about 
ljd. per lb., and to get 6d. for it after the trouble of boiling, 
feeding and extracting, must leave a profit of 200 per cent. This 
is bee-farming with a vengance. The farmer and cottager who 
have pure honey cannot compete against such a system, and then 
people wonder why they don’t keep bees. Make sure of a market 
for pure honey only, and then these, the farmer and cottager, 
who should be the most interested and benefited, will hold their 
own to the mutual benefit of themselves and the public.— 
G. Abbey. 
(To be continued.) 
THE COTTAGER’S STRAW SKEP—HOW TO GET SECTION 
HONEY FROM. 
Although I have been an interested reader of your articles on bee¬ 
keeping for some years, and have become one of the fraternity in a small 
way, I have never till now taken up my pen on the subject. After reading 
“ A Hallamshire Bee-keeper’9 ” article on the “ Dark Side of Bee-keeping,” 
I am afraid the latter gentleman will not think me particularly happy in 
heading my first letter “ The Cottager’s Straw Skep.’’ Your corre¬ 
spondent tells your readers that the cottager’s straw skep system was 
perfected hundreds of years ago, and he will naturally wonder what new 
thing can be written about it. Well, I do not suppose anything new will 
come of my scribbling, but old things are often acceptable to new readers, 
and if our worthy Editors think these notes of any service to these, the 
old hands will please pass them oy r. To begin with, I am not going to 
enter into any controversy with expert bee-keepers on the merits or 
demerits of any particular system, but I hope I may be pardoned if I take 
exception to the perfeection of a system of management the “ cheapness and 
simplicity ” of which is summei up in “ hiving the swarms and brimston- 
ing those not wanted for stocks.” I hope there are many hundreds of 
cottagers now to be found throughout this coun'ry who would be sorry 
to resort to the brimstone pit, and who work their straw skeps on much 
more intelligent principles than they did hundreds of years ago. 
“Felix’’has this week urged the necessity of every bee-keeper, who 
wants to get the best price for comb honey, turning bis special attention 
to secti ns. There is no doubt about the soundness of bis advice. The 
old supers or “ caps” are scarcely saleable when pat in the market along 
with honey in sections, and cottagers have found that out to their cost 
