lone 2, 1887. ] 
JOURNAL OF HORTIGri.TURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
451 
a few inches of growth to induce the plants to make dwarf compact 
bushes. For succcssional flowering more cuttings should be rooted, 
pinched, gradually hardened, and then planted outside. 
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dE BEE-KEEPER. 
NOTES ON BEES. 
SWARMING. 
It is a mystery how bees can survive in so cold and 
protracted a season, much less making progress by breed¬ 
ing so as to be ready to swarm as many are. At Lark- 
hall on Monday, the 16 th ult., a “ top” swarm (the first 
in the district) came off and was safely hived. The 
wintry weather compelled bee-keepers to resort to feeding 
both swarms and stocks. Neglect of this where bees are 
short of stores and natural supplies will have the effect of 
reducing the bees so as to render them unable to collect 
honey when the season comes. Greater attention to bees 
is required during May and the first half of June, and 
feeding does more good at these times than at any other 
time of the year. Natural brood-spreading has been 
general during fine days, but with the returning cold will 
be eaten out and so put back swarming and weaken stocks, 
unless doorways are contracted during its continuance and 
feeding resorted to so that the bees will keep up the heat 
of the hive. 
SPRING FEEDING AND DWINDLING APIARIES. 
Owing to the unfavourable season bees have had a 
hard struggle to exist, especially where the bees had an 
insufficient quantity of food. The great consumption during 
the mild October and November rendered many hives 
light, consequently the bees flew much, and so reduced the 
main body that they refused to feed during March and 
April, hence instead of being at swarming point as they 
ought to have been they are so weak that in many cases 
no swarms will be had this year. One old bee-keeper 
near me who has kept bees for upwards of fifty years tells 
me he never experienced so great a loss amongst bees, 
and does not expect a swarm, although about two months 
since I saw them they were in fairly good condition. He 
attributes the dwindling to short stores in autumn, and 
but for the extreme cold would all have fed in April and 
been good hives now. We are likely to hear less of 
“stimulating” bees during the spring months in the 
future than heretofore. Not only have many apiaries 
suffered, but individual hives experimented on by stimulat¬ 
ing have dwindled. Many bee-keepers will, I hope, be 
more careful of their bees, and more cautious of their 
artificial treatment than they have been taught by inex¬ 
perienced although enthusiastic bee-keepers. 
SCIENTIFIC QUEEN BREEDING. 
I can quite endorse “ Ilallamshire Bee-keeper’s ” 
opinion of the danger of cutting out queen cells too early 
from a well-bred hive if the after treatment tends in any 
way to retard hatching. Queens, workers, and drones are 
weakened if hatching has been delayed through a lower 
temperature than is absolutely necessary. I can also en¬ 
dorse his opinion to a great extent regarding the language 
of bees. That they can communicate their wishes and 
wants to one another by sound has long been a foregone 
conclusion. The earlier numbers of this Journal contain 
the opinions of different writers on the subject, myself 
amongst them. In the beginning of the present century 
•lie senses of bees and their general natural history wa 
much studied by eminent men, amongst whom was the 
Rev. Dr. Dunbar. One or two of his observations are well 
worth reproducing, which I hope to he able to do at an 
early date. 
While I agree with “ H. B. Iv.” on the points stated 
I do not agree with him on the question of smell being of 
a low order, or less than that of hearing, sight, or 
memory. I believe smell in the honey bee is a very 
highly developed sense. I have witnessed Ligurian bees 
making their appearance at a secluded spot a mile distant 
from their hives in two minutes after a hive was inverted. 
I have seen them nearly four miles from their hive lying 
dead in shop windows, attracted there by the smell of 
the sweets stored therein. I have removed hives a 
distance of twenty yards, and the flying bees passed other 
hives and found out their own. I could give hundreds of 
instances of a similar nature where smell was the only 
thing that led them to the spot. Some human beings 
are so offensive to bees that for my own and family’s 
sake, as well as their own, I have kept them out of my 
garden. By the entry of a single individual into my 
garden I have seen the bees so irritated that I had to 
be extremely cautious until I had the bees subdued. The 
day before I wrote this I sprinkled a little syrup on the 
foliage of some plants within a few inches of some 
Primulas; in about six seconds after bees were in search 
of it, coming near and flying right over it. The scent 
of the sugar brought the bees there; but their sight 
caused them to dart from the syrup to the expanded 
Primroses, from which at the time nothing could be 
gathered. 
My bees have taken an enormous quantity of peameal 
this season, and when at any time their supply was 
exhausted and the bees on the wing, it was with difficulty 
they could be kept out of the bag carried in the hand, 
attracted there by the smell. Some ten years ago when 
our bees were at the moors, and the inclemency of the 
weather had confined them to their hive so long as to 
consume all their honey and they were on the point of 
starving I visited them. Seeing they could not survive 
long, I obtained some sugar from the farmer and 
dissolved it over his kitchen fire. The smell of the dis¬ 
solving syrup brought the bees in number about the 
chimney, and when I went out with the syrup I was sur¬ 
rounded with bees, so much so that hundreds flew right 
into the vessel containing the syrup. There are some 
combs containing a little honey in my garden, the smell 
of which has attracted the bees, and by their assiduity 
day after day have managed to remove a small bit of 
wood closing the only entrance and have cleared out the 
honey. How often, too, do we see bees finding their way 
into cupboards containing honey? In regard to the bees 
swarming round driven bees at a distance from other 
hives, it must be observed that bees of tliemselv. s have a 
very strong odour, especially when swarming or being 
driven, so much so that I have seen bees attracted to 
driven bees and actually caused them to disgorge the 
honey they had secured from the hive they were driven 
from. There are many things which attract bees by the 
odour they possess.—A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
Lucombe, Pince & Co., Exeter .—Catalogue of Stove and Greenhouse 
Plants. 
John Laing & Co., Forest Hill, London, S.E .—Catalogue of Novelties, 
Begonias, cj'C.; Jubilee Lis' of Begonias , Orchids, Boses, etc., 1887. 
Edmund Philip Dixon, 57, Queen Street, Hull .—Catalogue of New aid 
Choice Plants, 1887. 
Dammaun & Co., near Naples, Italy .—Catalogue of Bulbs and 0 her 
Plants. 
