January JO, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
57 
if on trellises ; if they are showing flowers pinch them, and if they are 
kept oool and plenty of air given whenever favourable, they will, as the 
days lengthen, increase in strength and vigour. To all plants with their 
pots full of roots give a little artificial manure to the surface at intervals 
of two or three week'. To maintain a succession of spikes for cutting it 
is often necessary to keep the plants in a temperature of 45° to 50°, but 
under these conditions the spikes will only be small. Be careful not to 
overwater them, and on the other hand they must not be allowed to 
suffer by an insufficient supply, or their shoots will become woody, and 
only poor spikes will result. 
Ericas .—Such Heaths as Erica hyemalis and others as they cease 
•flowering should be cut down at once and placed where a night tem¬ 
perature of 45° is maintained. This is important if they are to flower 
another year, for if their growths are late they cannot be expected to 
become thoroughly ripe and set a good crop of fl owers. These plants 
should be stood on a moist base such as gravel or ashes afford. Keep 
young plants cool so as not to excite them into growth, for if they have 
been properly managed those in 3-inch pots will have sturdy growths 
about 1 inch long, which will grow rapidly after they are placed in 
their largest pots. The object is to get old stock into the same condition 
as the young ones as early as possible, then success can be insured. In the 
northern parts of the country it cannot, unless every eff >rt is made to 
encourage an early grow'h. 
IMhF BEE-KEEPER. 
£ 
FOREIGN RACES OF BEES—A NEW FOUL BROOD 
—TUNISIAN BEES. 
“ A Notts Bee-keeper ” (page 592, last vol.) wishes for my 
experience of the Cyprian and Syrian bees. Of the first 1 never 
succeeded in getting a live queen till the past autumn (I have two at 
present), so cannot say anything ; but of Syrians I have had about 
twenty, each one of which came from Mr. Benton per po3t from 
Beyrout at different times between 1881-6, so I ought to know what 
they are like. My experience is not yet as perfect as I should have 
liked, because since 1883 my bees have been troubled with an in¬ 
fectious disease, closely allied to “ foul brood,” a disease pronounced 
by Mr. Cheshire to be quite new to him ; it has at no time the slight¬ 
est smell, and as I thought that only foul brood was infectious, and 
that it could not be mistaken on account of its strong smell, I suc¬ 
ceeded, through interchanging combs, to get it in every hive before 
I realised its infectious nature. In the spring of 1885 I sent queens 
and specimens to Mr. Cheshire, who described it as a new baccillus 
disease, which lay in strings like links of sausages and not like 
baccillus alnee, which is like pieces of sticks crossed anyhow. He 
promised to cultivate it, and 1 took to trying to cure it with phenal, 
but it proved a signal failure. In 1886 1 tried Woodbury’s starving 
plan, otherwise called Jane’s, which has so far proved a success. It 
will thus be seen that I have not had my apiary in a healthy condi¬ 
tion to reap large harvests of honey, but as I believe every stock I 
have now is healthy and strong and shall know how to prevent 
disease in future, I hope to fairly test all kinds of bees and their 
crosses—viz., Cyprian, Syrian, Carniolian, and Tunisian bees, having 
imported queens of all these races. 
Of Syrians I find imported queens very tender the first winter 
here, and what is worse they often “ go missing ” during the summer. 
Even when introduced to young bees abroad I have found them 
missing ten days after and queen cells well under way. “ A Lanark¬ 
shire Bee-keeper ’’ describes Syrians as being vicious during the 
swarming fever, and much inclined to rob ; neither of these vices 
have 1 noticed in the produce of imported queens, nor in pure home¬ 
bred ones, but I had one home-bred Syrian that mated to a hybrid 
Italian drone, which was very vicious, though it showed no inclina¬ 
tion to rob. 1 have had two imported Palestine queens and want no 
more. I should judge that his Syrians are Palestines crossed with 
hybrid Italian drones, for if not imported direct they may be super¬ 
seded as a young laying daughter reigning instead within three weeks’ 
time, as I have several times experienced. Then again in America 
and with some here the Palestines are called “ Syrian.” The editor 
•of the American Bee Journal, on being requested to make a dis¬ 
tinction, said they were properly called “ Syrian,” as a reference to a 
map of Asia (probably a political map) would show, and triumph¬ 
antly finished up his geographical knowledge by referring to Scot¬ 
land, describing it as “ one of the British islands.” I do not think 
u A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper ’’ is so confused, but I would just like to 
know the history of his “ Syrians,” as his letters are freely copied in 
the American papers, and i have not been able to corroborate his 
observations on them. I do not doubt his honesty—this is above 
doubt—but I do seriously doubt his having the true Syrians. That 
these bees are not naturally vicious may be taken for granted when 
we remember the natives sometimes have 500 hives piled one on the 
top of the other, entrances facing the street, the said street only wide 
emugh for two loaded mules to pass, and nearly all keep bees. How 
would the naked children and half clad natives get on if bees at 
swarming time had to be taken two miles from everywhere ? 
Regarding the management of these bees, how many send for a 
queen in May or June, give her to three or four frames of bees, and 
as soon as nine or ten frames are full at the beginning of July, put on a 
crate of sections, and just when they expect them to be full of honey 
they find them full of brood and not a pound of honey in the whole 
hive, instead of the thousand pounds they expected ? I do not 
believe the foundation of success can be laid any spring with these 
bees, but must be done during summer for the next season, and I 
advise the following proceeding:—When you get your queen in the 
spring give her to a good strong stock, keep taking out a frame of 
eggs to rear other queens for hybrid stocks, and neither let your im- 
ported queen be extra strong or weak in bees, about ten standard 
frames well covered will do ; in the fall she should be given by 
means of my direct “ Law ” to a black stock of bees to winter, these 
will keep her in check, and the next season she will be acclimatised. 
As soon as nine or ten frames are well covered add nine or ten more 
frames under them—she will fill eighteen standard frames with 
brood—and when the bottom set is full of brood and July has not 
come in, piles of sections, supers, &c., can be gradually put on the 
top ; in fact, they must be worked on the Stewarton system, whether 
for comb or extracted honey. A third set of brood combs may be 
given under the other two, but if the first two are not full of brood 
by the end of July all hope of a harvest is past for that season, and the 
best course to adopt is to give a third set under the other two and 
feed all August to induce breeding, unless sent to the moors ; the 
top set of combs must be full of food for winter, and if the middle 
set is half full so much the better, pack them the first week in 
September for winter—all three sets of comb, mind—and it matters 
not whether the hive has a wire cloth bottom or stands a yard above 
ground with no bottom at all, so long as they are dry and warm on 
all the other five sides and there is plenty of ventilation below, the 
bees will be sure to winter all right, and every bee hatched in August 
will live to see June following, barring accidents. Thirty-five or 
forty pounds of sealed stores will be required, and this stock the 
following season, with a queen in her third year, will simply do 
wonders if there is any honey to be had. I have a Syrian queen at 
present, imported in 1884, that £5 would not buy. 
Home-bred queens are ready for work the summer following their 
birth, are well acclimatised and cross-mated, and are better honey 
gatherers than the pure race ; but with these as with the pure, 35 lbs. or 
40 lbs. of stores must be left with two sets of combs full of bees, 
and a third set under to give space to prevent overcrowding ; with¬ 
out these conditions in the fall, you may just as well expect a quart 
of peas out of a pint measure as an extra large crop of honey from 
these bees. The management in spring consists in letting them 
alone until the bottom set of combs shows signs of being full of bees 
and brood, and if the top set are all full of honey sealed they may 
be taken away for winter food and clean supers put on inetead, thus 
two sets are full of brood, with a set in reserve to save the trouble 
of feeding. If standard frames (14 inches by 8 inches) alone are 
used, sixty will be needed for a stock, all on at once. The above is 
what I consider the proper way to manage Syrians, founded on 
close observation and experiment. 
Tunisian Bees —Has anyone ever had these bees ? if so, will 
they please give their experience ? Mr. Frank Benton sent me a 
queen last spring (he tried in 1885, but only two workers arrived 
alive) which I introduced to a healthy black stock. By the time bees 
begun to hatch I found the stock diseased, and put queen and bees 
to starve, and then gave them two dry clean combs, 14 inches by 
lOf inches. End of June, honey being plentiful, they kept them¬ 
selves, but by the middle of July they had dwindled down to about a 
wineglassful of bees, with a patch of brood in one comb (one side 
only) the size of a penny, and as they seemed able to keep them¬ 
selves, and thinking they would require acclimatising, I decided to 
let them alone. They thus remained till the 10th August, when I 
found a larger patch of brood on both sides of one frame and one side 
of the other, the bees much more numerous, the brood healthy, and 
though plenty of eggs, not much honey ; so to save the trouble of 
feeding and to keep them alive I gave them another frame which 
contained about 2 lbs. of honey. I did not examine them again till the 
end of the month, when I found two patches each about the size of 
half a tea-saucer, being along the top bar close to the quilt. In Septem¬ 
ber 1 thought I would find them some work in storing syrup, so I 
inverted a 2 lb. jam bottle full on, which slowly went; then I put on a 
8 lb. ditto, then I examined them about the end of September, and found 
