4J8 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
t M»y £«, 1887. 
Pkalcenopgig .—Strong sunshine, even exposure to too much light, is 
ruinous to these plants during their period of growth. If shading of a 
temporary nature is employed every care is necessary. Ordinary tiffany 
will | rove too light if the plants are suspended on the south side of a 
very light structure. Under these circumstances the glass should be 
lightly shaded as well with a little whiting or other material that can 
be used for the purpose. Maintain abundance of moisture about these 
plants. Yellow thrips is the greatest enemy the cultivator has to con¬ 
tend against. It is not safe to dip them for fear of injury to the centre 
of the plant or their large stiff fleshy leaves. With care the leaves can 
be sponged without injury with a weak solution of tobacco water, but 
this operation should only be entrusted to expei ienced persons. 
Cypripe lining .—In a warm, close, moist atmosphere these plants grow 
rapidly, in fact they make much greater progress than if subjected to 
cooler and more airy conditions. It is surprising how rapidly many of 
them increase in size by liberal treatment in this respect. Where 
division of any of the plants is needed no better time could be selected 
for the purpose, for they soon become established again. Many varieties 
will be in flower, or approaching that condition, and if cut up now they 
quickly break into growth and the formation of new roots will take 
place. No special time can be named for carrying out this work, but if 
the flowering season or just after be selecte 1 more satisfactory conditions 
result than during any other period. 
Ca'anthes .—Up to this time the plants could be accommodated in 
almost any position, for they have taken up but little room. The rapid 
extension of their growth alters this materially. Stage room with us is 
limited, and therefore other expedients have to be resorted to from 
time to time. One of these is to bore three holes just beneath the rim 
of the pots in which the plants are growing, and then secure the wire to 
enable them being suspended from the roof. Grown under these con¬ 
ditions they certainly give a little more labour in watering, but the 
plants do equally as well as when grown on the stage in the ordinary 
way. We are under the impression that they do better, for sturdy well- 
ripened growth is insured. Give liberal supplies of water to those that 
are rooting freelv. Water those not in this condition carefully, for too 
much water is ruinous in their early stages. 
w. 
iffi 
HE BEE-KEEPER. 
PRACTICAL BEE-KEEPISG. 
No. 11. 
Many a bee-keeper has attempted to transfer a stock 
from a skep to a frame hive and failed : indeed, to attempt 
this transfer in spring is to court failure. This operation, 
unless it is performed at a certain period which Nature 
herself points out, is most hazardous, and is now very 
generally deprecated even by those who some years ago 
advocated the practice. With the introduction of comb 
foundation in its present form the necessity and wisdom 
of preserving combs cut from sleeps, unless in exceptional 
circumstances, has gone; but there are still some bee¬ 
keepers who apparently desire to make such a transfer, 
not, perhaps, fully comprehending that with comb foun¬ 
dation and a little syrup or honey, comb may be produced 
with little more trouble than the transfer of the old comb 
occasions. At certain seasons of the year, however, it is 
perfectly safe to transfer any stock ; and therefore for the 
benefit of those who desire to have instruction on the 
must be performed, but for its successful performance 
certain precautions must be taken. 
In a suppositive case there are two skeps the combs 
of which we desire to transfer into frame hives. The 
method upon which we should proceed would be to allow 
a natural swarm to issue from each skep, to hive these 
swarms separately, unless they are very small, when it 
will be more profitable to unite them both in one hive. 
The laying queen has now, it will be perceived, left the 
hive, so that in twenty-one or twenty-two days after her 
departure all worker brood will have become perfect bees* 
and the comb is therefore ready for transfer; but about 
the ninth to the fourteenth day after the issue of the 
swarms each skep will probably send forth a second 
swarm—generally called a cast—and these must also be 
hived in separate hives, and each hive placed as close as 
possible to the stock from which the cast located in it has 
issued. If another cast also issues some three days after 
the first cast it must be united to the cast which issued 
from the same stock. On the twenty-second day all the 
bees must be driven out of the skeps into empty hives, 
and these hives be placed on the stands upon which the 
old skeps stood. Each skep may now be cut in two 
transversely between the two centre combs, and all 
combs worth transferring may be removed and placed in 
frames. In placing these combs in the frame care must 
be taken to pack them in tightly without, however, 
damaging or crushing the cells more than is absolutely 
necessary, and three pieces of tape must then be passed 
round the frame at suitable distances to retain the whole 
in position until the bees have themselves fastened the 
combs and made them secure. If a frame can only be 
partly filled a false bottom must be inserted to retain the 
comb in position. This false bottom rail and the tapes 
must be removed two days after the combs have been in¬ 
serted in the hive. No drone comb should be transferred 
at all; it can be melted down for wax together with other 
fragments, of which there will no doubt be a considerable 
number. These frames of comb may now be inserted in 
the hives occupied by the casts, and in the evening the 
bees driven from the skeps may be united to these casts. 
Each cast will thus be strengthened by the addition of all 
the bees from the skep standing by its side, and wdl form 
a very valuable stock for another year. The two skeps 
will thus be increased to four stocks unless the swarms 
were very weak, and then by uniting them the number is 
reduced to three. 
The points particularly to be observed in the per¬ 
formance of this operation are : — 
1. To place the casts close to the stocks from which 
they respectively issued, the entrances facing the same 
point I will endeavour to show how, and when, this opera¬ 
tion may most successfully be performed, with the least 
danger of loss, by a comparatively unskilled bee-keeper. 
The natural time for making such tninsfer is when 
the combs contain least brood. Now if a laying queen 
is removed it is well known that on the twenty first or 
twenty-second day after such removal nearly if not quite 
all the worker brood will have issued from the cells. The 
comb will contain drone brood, the perfect drone not 
issuing from the cell until the twenty-fourth day—often 
a day or two later; but in making a transfer of comb 
care will be taken to excise all drone cells, because the 
destruction of these drones will be no great evil, and con¬ 
sequently the manipulation may be performed without 
regarding their interests in the slightest degree. The 
twenty-first or twenty-second day after the svarm has 
gone forth is then the day upon which this operation 
way. 
2. To see that each cast has a fertile queen. 
Upon the first point no more need now be said, but it 
is most necessary to ascertain the presence of a fertile 
queen in the casts. The dangers to which queens are 
subjected before they can become mothers will be pointed 
out in a future paper, but the necessity for inspecting the 
combs and ascertaining the presence of eggs is paramount 
in those cases where it is suspected that the queen is lost. 
From seven to fourteen days after the issue of the queen 
from the cell eggs should be found in the combs, and if 
none can be discovered there is grave cause for suspicion 
that the queen has been lost or injured. If this is the 
case her place must be at once filled by the bee-keeper 
giving to the bees another queen to replace the one so 
lost or injured. The advantage—immediately upon hiving 
a cast—of giving it a young and fertile queen is manifest* 
