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journal of horticulture and cottage gardener. 
DeceTiber 13, 189 J. 
firmly to the sides. The whole of the stand, feet excepted, is 
made from used wood, the feet and the perforated zinc being the 
only outlay, and which amounts to Is. 
Fig. 89 is a sectional drawing, showing the button behind, and 
the lower dotted lines the fillet which holds up the floor, and allows 
it to rest when ventilated ; a is the perforated zinc, b the flight 
board, and c the ladder ; d the bottom or false floor, e the fillet 
explained (the crossed parts the feet), and f bracket or hinge to 
sapport flight boards.—A Lanaekshire Bee-keeper. 
(To be continued.) 
STRAW HIVES. 
Straw hives or skeps are still used in many districts, the 
majority of them being much too small. The usual size is from 
10 inches to 12 inches in diameter, and the hive dome-shaped. 
The bees from such hives will constantly swarm for want of room, 
and by the lime they have settled down to work the honey flow is 
over. An old stock after throwing off a swarm and often a couple 
of casts, and having but little storage room, will barely gather 
sufficient stores to winter on. 
Having bought a stock in a straw skep early in the spring, 
I once experimented with a hive of this description. The weather 
was favourable, and by the second week in May the bees com¬ 
menced to hang out at the entrance of the hive, I then turned 
the hive up and drove part of the bees into an empty skep until I 
saw the queen go up, I next set them on the stand where they 
had previously been, and placed a piece of queen-excluder zinc 
over the hole on the ton of the hive. The old stock I put on the 
top, making all secure so that the bees had to go into the entrance 
of the bottom hive. The worker bees passed through the queen- 
excluder zinc, the queen remaining in the bottom hive, the brood 
in due course being all hatched out. In the meantime the bees 
filled the bottom hive with comb and brood, and in about three 
weeks I again drove the bees from the bottom hive until I saw the 
queen ascend. This hive was put on the original stand with a 
piece of queen-excluder zinc over the hole, the two hives now 
being put on the top. Honey was now coming in freely during the 
favourable weather, and in ten days this hive was full of comb, 
brood, and honey. I then drove the bees from bottom hive as 
before, and took the first skep from the top and placed it at the 
bottom, putting a piece of queen-excluder zinc over the hole, 
the bees and queen been placed in the bottom hive as previously 
done. The other two were placed on the top, and by the middle 
of July the brood was all hatched out, and the two hives full of 
honey. I eventually drove the bees from the two top skeps, and 
was rewarded with the most beautiful white combs of honey that I 
had ever seen obtained from straw skeps. 
However good under certain conditions straw skeps may be 
they are not to be compared with the frame hive, as the latter has 
so many advantages. Still, people who have kept bees for many 
years in straw skeps are very slow in trying anything that is new or 
different to what they have been used to, and prefer the hive they 
have used all their lives. I know many of that class, and if asked 
the question as to the result of the honey season will at once say 
they have had a certain number of swarms, but had not taken 
any honey, and thought two or three stocks had not sufficient to 
winter on, but should leave them to take their chance. If the bees 
had been in moveable frame hives, and worked on rational lines, 
they would have provided a surplus of honey that might have gone 
towards paying the rent of the cottage. Old-fashioned bee-keepers 
imagine there is some mystery in the manipulating of bees, and 
although one explains the whole working of the modern system of 
bee-keeping, they still remain very undecided in the matter. One 
bee-keeper within a few miles of where I am writing, who has 
kept bees for half a century, and has at the present time upwards 
of fifty stocks, started a few years ago with some frame hives, but 
for the want of attention at the right time he looks on them as a 
failure, and still thinks the straw skep is the best for his purpose. 
To such I would advise the use of large flat-topped straw skeps, 
from 15 inches to 20 inches in diameter. A crate of sections can 
be worked on the top of skeps of this size. Some of the best 
sections I have ever seen were worked on the top of a straw skep 
in this way. 
The late Mr. Pettigrew was a great authority with regard to 
straw skeps. I met him a few years before bis death, and I had 
not at that time seen a frame hive, but asked his advice on many 
things connected with bee-keeping, all of which he freely gave. 
He was a firm believer in the future of the straw hive, and thought 
the frame hive would never make headway, an opinion, I believe, 
he altered in his later years. Since that time modern bee-keeping 
has made great strides, and in favourable seasons tons of honey are 
now gathered which would otherwise be wasted.— An English 
Bee-keeper. 
TRADE CATALOGUES RECEIVED. 
W. Baylor Hartland, Patrick Street, Cork.— 'Hartland's Little Booh 
of Seeds, Plants, and Potatoes. 
J. Carter & Co., High Holborn, London.— Seed Catalogue. 
W. Clibran & Son, Oldfield Nurseries, Altrincham— Chrysanthemums. 
English Fruit and Eose Company, Kings Acre Nurseries, Hereford.— 
Fruit Trees, Roses and Shrubs. 
Hogg & Wood, Coldstream, N.B.— Forest and Fruit Trees, Roses and 
Shrubs. 
All correspondence should be directed either to “ The 
Editor or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to 
Dr. Hogg or members of the staff often remain unopened 
unavoidably. We request that no one will write privately 
to any of our correspondents, as doing so subjects them to 
unjustifiable trouble and expense. 
Correspondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions 
relating to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should 
never send more than two or three questions at once. All 
articles intended for insertion should be written on one side of 
the paper only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, 
and we do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
Taking Scions of Fruit Trees (<?., Wales'). —The best time for 
taking all the k’nds you mention is while all are quite dormant in the 
buds, which cannot safely be deferred after January. The safest plan 
is to cut the requisite number of scions now, and insert them in damp 
sandy soil firmly on the north side of a wall, where they will keep 
plump and dormant in the buds until the stocks are swelling theirs, 
and the sap is sufficiently active for working them in the open ground. 
Flowers and Seeds (A Young Gardener). —The essential parts 
of a flower are the stamens and pistil, and without these seed cannot 
be produced. The term “ flower ” includes both calyx and corolla, 
which are not essential to seed production, though they are present in 
a very large number of flowers, and serve both as protection to the more 
delicate essential organs, and as a means of attraction to insects. Seed, 
however, is often produced without calyx or corolla being present, and 
some might, therefore, erroneously think there was no flower. Some 
flowers, termed cleistogamous, also produce seed without expanding, as 
in some of the Viola family, and when these pods are observed it might 
be thought they had been produced without flowers. Without ovules to 
be fertilised by pollen, through the medium of stigma and style, or 
without their aid (as in the Conifer family), it is impossible to produce 
seed. 
Planting Vines from Tubs (^Garddwr). —The two Vines that 
were transferred in the spring from pots to 18-inch tubs will not take well 
to the border by merely placing them in holes the width and depth of 
the balls, for the roots will have a more or less coiled formation, and 
not ramify freely into the fresh soil. Of course, it would give the least 
check, and perhaps better results next year and the following ; but it 
would tell on the Vines in time, as the roots would retain their original 
formation, not supplying nutriment so rapidly as horizontal roots, which 
are often put forth by such spiral-rooted Vines from the collar, being an 
effort on the part of Vines to supply themselves in the directest manner 
with food. The better plan would be to wait until the Vines commence 
growing, and when they have shoots an inch long carefully remove the 
soil from the roots ; disentangle them, and spread them out evenly and 
as straight as practicable in the top foot of the border. With care in 
performing this, and following with a moderate supply of tepid water 
so as to settle the soil about the roots, the Vines would take to the soil 
at once, and little, if any, check be given to the growth. It is the best 
plan, so as to give them a chance of doing well in years to come and 
indefinitely. The Vines should be closely pruned long before they are 
planted. 
