90 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
May 0. 
they will plunder their weak neighbours for the sake of 
plunder, until they have got all their honey, and the stock 
is destroyed—even at a time when there is plenty of honey 
to he gathered. The larger the number of the hives, the 
more they are apt to be plundered, and it is a difficult 
matter to know what to do. I have found a stock increase 
in a few days a dozen pounds from plunder; in this case, 
if you can watch them, the only way is to remove and give, 
them the benefit of a “ brimstone match,” for if they are not 
removed and destroyed, they carry the system on until they 
become hereditary thieves. It is to be regretted that in¬ 
sects endowed with so much sagacity should be addicted 
to such bad habits. Their attack on the wall-fruit in a bad 
honey year is nothing to this propensity; being a great 
deal in my bee-garden, I kill every thief I can see at the 
hives. They are easily discovered by their buzzing flight; 
and in case of a battle, the thief is always trying to escape, 
and acting on the defensive. Even for this reason alone, hives 
should never be placed near each other ; the nearer they are, 
the more likely to create plundering,—the really besetting sin 
of our insect friends. I have remarked elsewhere, that wild 
bees never rob each other’s nests, nor do they fight at all. 
The best way to prevent plunder, is to find out by expe¬ 
rience how many hives the country will carry, and not to 
exceed this number; overstocking is one of the great causes 
of robbery amongst bees. The poor cottager who keeps 
only one stock, or not more than two, is seldom annoyed by 
his bees plundering each other’s treasures; so that amongst 
bees, the “separate system" is the best, and the fewer bees 
are kept close together the better. The bees in large com¬ 
munities, particularly where they are placed on benches 
from 10 to 15 together, are by far the worst enemies to 
themselves, and destroy more stocks than all the host of 
enemies enumerated. I must differ with that excellent 
writer, M. Uelieu, in charging the swallow, or swift, with 
killing bees. I have been a close observer of the swallow' 
and swift for many years, and have also shot them often, 
but never found a bee in their stomachs or mouths, nor did 
I ever observe them catch bees in their flight; those that I 
have been cruel enough to shoot, I have always found with 
their mouths filled with a small sort of flies. 
I have never seen hornets attack the liive-bees, nor did I 
ever see them attack the wall-fruit; they seem to devour 
insects, and they are particularly fond of those on the bark 
of an old elm tree. September 12th, 1817, I killed several 
hornets with a small stick : these hornets were busy in the 
crevices of a very old elm pollard-tree. I had a nest of 
hornets in a hay-stack within 00 yards of my garden, and 
was never in the least annoyed by them; they are much 
more easily killed than wasps. 
The proverb, “ that nine hornets will kill a horse," is not 
often verified ; if a horse were tethered to a tree in which a 
nest of hornets were, it might happen—I never heard of it; 
indeed, a hive of bees would kill a horse under the same 
circumstances. I repeat that, although they were nume¬ 
rous last summer, these insects did me no mischief, either 
in my apiary or to the wall-fruit. I found them every day 
round the butts of some old elms, either catching insects or 
j partaking of the exudation from the bark. 
Everybody knows the value of destroying a queen wasp 
I in the spring; at one plum tree, the leaves of which had 
i some exudation from an aphis, I killed 50 in the course of 
! a week in May. 
Spiders destroy a great many bees in detail; they make 
their webs more frequently round boxes than straw-hives ; 
these ought to be examined and swept every week. In my 
j straw hives I have seen them weave their webs inside: a 
1 bee is caught in these, and although it is not immediately 
1 killed by the spider, dies of exhaustion in a short time, 
being imable to extricate itself. 
To prevent ants getting to a hive, soot should be placed 
round the feet of the stands. 
The moths are most destructive. If they get fairly into 
the combs there is no cure. I read an account of an early 
swarm, on the 31st of March ; on inquiry I found that the 
moths had taken possession, and the early swarm was a total 
desertion of the hive ! 
Sparrows will very often kill bees which they catch in 
their flight, when they have young ones to feed, but it is a 
rare practice with them. 
Mr. Huish reckons wild bees amongst the enemies of hive- 
bees ! this is too bad, as these wild bees interfere very little 
with the hive-bees, and never plunder either their neigh¬ 
bours or each other; there is only one species, the Apis 
terrestris, which pastures on a few of the same flowers, par¬ 
ticularly the lime-tree, which this bee, and the Apis lucorum, 
are very fond of. 
I do not admire Mr. Huish’s desire to destroy all the 
“ Bombinatrices ” for the sake of their honey; it is cruel, to 
say the least of it—the wild bees never plunder each other’s 
nests. Like the hive-bees, they are very inoffensive ; and, 
in their way, are an example of industry and forethought 
worthy of imitation, so much so, that Solomon might have 
said—“(io to the wild bee, thou sluggard, consider her ways 
and be wise.” 
GAS-TAR WALKS. 
In No. 183, you say you shall be glad of any additional in¬ 
formation on the subject of “ gas-tar walks.” I have used it 
largely, with highly satisfactory results. Having a great 
number of walks in my garden and pleasure ground, from 
six feet to sixteen inches in breadth, probably about two 
miles altogether, I found the cost of keeping them per¬ 
fectly free from grass and weeds a very serious item of 
labour, besides doing the walks much injury, by more or less 
breaking up the surface whenever they required a perfect 
weeding. 1 therefore applied the tar as follows, having first 
swept the walks quite clean, and got the surface hard by 
rolling. I chose a dry, warm day, and poured the tar over 
them, as thinly as practicable, spreading it with a flat stick 
or the back of a rake ; the walk being warm, the tar runs 
very freely; clean gravel was then scattered evenly over the j 
tar, so as to cover it entirely, and all was finished. 
Care should be taken not to let the tar touch the edging, I 
as it kills it. It ought to be kept about one inch from it. i 
The result has exceeded my anticipations ; much that I did [ 
was about two years since, and not a weed is to be found ; in j 
fact, I do not think all my walks have since cost me Gd. to ] 
keep them, except a light sprinkling of fresh gravel as the 
old gets by degrees imbedded. I estimate the cost at not 
more than one year’s expense of keeping the walks neat 
and clean without the tar. 
The walks are as hard as if covered with concrete, and 
when walked on, give a crunching sound as if frozen hard, j 
They are much admired, and are almost always dry; in fact, 
in an hour after heavy rain they appear, and really are, as j 
dry as ever. 
The smell of the tar disappears in a few days. The 
effect of applying tor is to make the walks beautifully level, 
as it lies in the little hollows that may be in them, which 
being covered with the gravel, all becomes perfectly smooth 
and even.—S. Y., Dublin. 
POULTRY ACCOUNT. 
I send you, as I promised, a statement of my poultry 
receipts and expenditure for the year 1851. The profits you 
will see are very small —in fact, nothing ; but eggs and fowls 
are very cheap in this neighbourhood, and you will see by 
the prices attached that they are charged at a very low rate. 
Eggs according to season (our only customers being shop¬ 
keepers), and fowls sold into the house at 2s. Gd., ducks at 
3s. Gd., a couple. The year 1851 was one, in this district, most 
unfavourable for hatching and for rearing both chickens and 
ducks. This was probably caused by the long continuance 
of dry weather. Many fowls, of all ages, drooped and died 
off quite suddenly. The charge for barley-meal is high ; I 
had a servant who wasted it in spite of my directions as to 
quantity. 
Guinea fowls, I think, cannot be advantageously kept with 
fowls; they are too quarrelsome. My dogs (which are very 
friendly with the rest of the poultry) always begin to bark 
when they hear the Guinea hen, and always fly at her; her 
noise appears to make them quite restless. I think the 
difference between the Guinea cock and hen is as great 
almost as between other kinds of poultry,—the prominent 
wattles of the cock bird, his upright carriage, his rapid 
running with his wings half-opened and rather drooping, 
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