THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
July 29. 
282 
! As I intend to publish a statement of the entire process, 
I shall not enter at present into further detail, but advise 
j every farmer of 200 or 900 acres of land to plant one- 
quarter-of-an-acre with the White Silesian Sugar Beet, and 
I will undertake to teach him afterwards how to convert it, 
i at an additional cost of 50s., into a substance equal to from 
eight to ten quarters of bailey malt, for brewing, and which 
, will not cost altogether more than 20s. per quarter. This 
is no visionary project, of which any one may satisfy himself, 
if he will pay a visit to my farm at Writtle. The Yellow 
Globe Mangold-wurtzel will answer, but the liavour of the 
beer is not so pleasant as that derived from the Silesian ; but 
it is, however, more productive, and more easily obtained, 
and an excellent beer may be brewed from it at 10s. per 
hogshead.” 
Cinder Sifter. —I saw the other day, at the house of a 
friend, what appeared to me a very simple and cleanly con¬ 
trivance for sifting cinders. It stood in his back kitchen, 
and was a box, say two feet wide, two feet deep, and eighteen i 
inches from back to front, with a close-fitting lid, a couple 
of wood handles, and two convex pieces of wood nailed on 
| the bottom to serve as rockers. Within, was the sieve four 
inches deep, its sides of wood, with a wire bottom, resting 
on two ledges, upon which it slid freely from side to side, 
being made four inches shorter than the width of the box. 
The cinders being placed in the sieve, and the lid put on, it 
was only necessary to rock it two or three times by pressing 
with the thumb and finger at one end of the box, and the 
ash was discharged to the bottom. The operation might 
take a minute, and was performed with the greatest cleanli¬ 
ness. Its other advantages were, that the servant, instead 
of being obliged to go out daily in all weathers, could sift 
her cinders indoors as often as they accumulated, and the 
box required to be emptied but once a week. The one I 
saw was painted, but it might be made roughly and of any 
dimensions, and serve to sift mould or other materials for 
potting plants in a shed or greenhouse.—S. 1\, Bnshmerc. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
*** We request that no one will write to the departmental writers of 
The Cottage Gardener. It gives them unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. All communications should be addressed “ To the Editor of 
the Cottage Gardener, 2, Amen Corner, Paternoster Row , London .” 
Honey Dew. — II. W.N. writes to us as follows :—“ Your correspond¬ 
ent, ‘ J. B. P.,’ has made some observations on this subject. In reply to 
part of them—laurels have an exudation during four months in the year 
which the hive bee delights in : some trees yield a honey dew to only 
one or two species of the wild bee—the beech is one of these. The Apis 
terrestris, and one other species, may be seen at this time in great num¬ 
bers on the beech leaves, but none of the hive bees. Wasps are in the 
1 greatest numbers at present on the larch, of the resinous juice of which 
they seem exceedingly fond. In very hot summers the extraordinary 
exudation of honey dew supplies the place of flowers ; indeed, a week of 
this dew is more productive of honey than a month of the finest bee- 
flowers. A high temperature is required to produce honey dew in full 
force. I have long observed that in cold, wet summers very little honey 
dew appears. That mentioned by your Dublin correspondent, on the 
laurels, is not the same sort which appears on the sycamore, lime, oak, 
and fruit trees. The laurels in all seasons afford some honey to the hive 
bees. The great honey dew which takes place in hot summers is quite 
independent of this, and during the late thunder storms seems to have 
been very general.” 
Destroying Thistles. —Pratensis asks, “ What truth is there in 
' the proverb ? 
* Cut a thistle in June, 
And you cut him too soon ; 
Cut a thistle in July, 
And then he’s sure to die.* 
If true, what are the reasons ? ” The proverb is correct, and easily ex¬ 
plicable. If you cut down a thistle whilst vigorous in June, it has power 
to shoot again, and to elaborate sap for fresh growth next year ; but if 
you cut it in July, after its strength is exhausted in producing its flowers, 
it has neither strength nor time to effect that elaboration of sap before 
the winter sets in, and it either dies, or is killed by an early cutting down, 
the year following. 
Swarm in Stock’s Place.— B. B. asks—“ When a stock swarms, I 
have, in four instances, placed the swarm in the place occupied by the 
stock, aud stopped up the stock. This plan has answered, so far as to 
prevent casting (which I now consider will not take place, this being the 
fifteenth day since two swarms came off). Now, in all the cases the bees 
have immediately set upon the drones, hundreds of which were found 
dead on the hives being unstopped. Will not this be prejudicial to the 
hive being furnished only with a virgin queen? You will see lam nut 
of Huisli’s opinion, that the queen is a virgin and mother.” To this “A 
Country Curate” replies—“ I do not think your correspondent, * B. B.,’ 
need feel any anxiety about the success of his stock, which, when shut 
up, killed their drones. That they should wish to get rid of them, under 
the trying circumstances of last month, when starvation stared even the 
strongest hives in the face, is not to be wondered at. It speaks well for 
the sagacity of the bees. The fact, however, is to me interesting, as 
being singular. I never have shut up my bees as yet, but have let as 
many join the swarm as choose, (I mean where the swarm has been 
located on the old stand in the place of the parent stock), therefore it is, 
perhaps, that I have never witnessed this circumstance. Have any other 
of your apiarian readers, who may have given my new system a trial, 
experienced anything of the kind ? I remember well, last summer, that 
after the issue of a monster prime swarm on the first of June, from a i 
monster hive (itself an artificial swarm of 1851 j queen then at least 
two years old), holding at least ten gallons, i. e., G bushel, the bees J 
which remained at once set about killing the drones, of whom many ! 
hundreds were destroyed, chiefly young, though full fledged ones, while 
quite enough were left—in fact as many hundreds—for all the needs of the 
hive. And I dare say “B. B.” will have seen a great many drones by 
this time issue from each of these hives on fine days. At all events, the 
bees, depend upon it, knew what they were about. Even had all the 
drones been destroyed in those identical hives, it would have mattered 
little, provided there were common bees enough to keep up the necessary 
temperature, of which there can be no doubt. Huber proved, years ago, 
and I have abundantly proved this year, that drones are not requisite in 
a hive which has a virgin queen, provided there are drones in the apiary 
close at hand. I had a virgin artificial queen (reared after the process 
suggested at pages 119 and 120, vol. vii., Cottage Gardener, i.e., in 
a glass over a hive containing some empty comb with a little honey) 
hatched on the 9th of May last, the swarm having been made on the 2/tli 
of April out of a nine-gallon hive, in which I had as yet seen no drones, 
although there were a good many in two hives in the kitchen-garden 
twenty yards off. On the 13th, I caught sight of a drone entering the 
hive, I believe one that had scented his way in from one of the other 
hives. On the 14th, l took away the glass in which the young queen 
had been reared before my eyes, caught her (she was a fine queen), and 
examined the comb, but found not a single egg. The queen, who I do 
not think had yet left the hive, was then put back into the hive, but did 
not, I think, begin to lay till about the 23rd. Besides this drone, I am 
not aware of any having been seen in or about this artificial swarm, yet 
its queen has turned out very prolific, the hive being at this moment 
(July 12th) full of brood, and the bees hanging out at the entrance. 
The queen of another stock, out of which another artificial swarm was 
forced, a la Scudamore, on the 15th of May, also became a prolific 
mother (she also having been reared artificially), although there were 
scarcely any drones in the hive. I saw her myself returning home from 
an excursion abroad three several times ; this was some days after her 
birth. I take this opportunity of requesting those of your apiarian 
readers who have tried the plan of substituting swarms for old stocks to 
inform us of their success—or failure, should they have had the ill-luck to 
fail. The season, however (though much improved of late), has been 
very unfavourable for all late May or June swarms (whatever be the 
system of management, new or old), many of which have perished from 
sheer starvation in many parts of the country.” 
Rose-buds Dying (B. B.).—Some check at the roots, we think, was j 
the probable cause of your rose-buds dying off suddenly ; but, were wc 
on the spot, we might have been as much puzzled as yourself. 
Heat for Pine-apples (An Amateur ).—“ Having commenced pine¬ 
apple growing as an amateur, and wishing to obtain ail the information 
I could on the subject, I was told that if went to F. Middleton’s, Esq., 
Park Hill, near Eckington, I should see some pines growing in great 
perfection on a new plan. Accordingly I went over, and Mr. Barnes, 
the gardener, very politely showed me the pines, and explained his 
method of growing them, The plants are plunged in the open mould, 
in a bed heated by a tank of hot water underneath, and the top-heat is 
obtained by a flow and return pipe along the front, and the end of the 
house is heated by the same pipe flowing into a cistern in the house, and 
which also supplies him with warm water for his use. I asked him the 
temperature he kept his bottom-heat at; he said from 90° to 95°, and 
sometimes over that; the water in the tanks to obtain the bottom-heat 
was then 130°. He told me that it was a new mode of heating, and that 
it had been in operation about eleven months, and nothing could do 
better; his pines did look remarkably well. He said he had cut nine 
fruit, and he had now twelve more in fruit, out of thirty, which he first 
planted in September last; and he has some capital successions coming 
on, which he told me were only suckers in March last; these he is growing 
in the front bed in his house. I must tell you, by the way, there is a 
path through the middle of the house, dividing it in two beds, and all 
last winter he grew cucumbers in the front bed; but finding the plan 
answer so well for pines, he has now devoted the whole house to it, and 
has put up a pit at the end of the house, twenty feet long, heated the 
same, and from the same apparatus, to grow his early cucumbers in ; he 
has tried it with melons this seaspn, and has grown them in it to great | 
perfection. He told me he had cut thirty fruit from four plants, and is j 
now growing another crop from the same plants. I must say his pines ! 
are looking first-rate, and his succession plants arc growing like barley, ! 
and it appears to me that the plan he has adopted is a good one; he told ; 
me that his master saw it last year exhibited in the Crystal Palace, j 
What led me to make these observations was, I was reading Mr. Erring- 
ton’s article in The Cottage Gardener to-day, on Pine-apple Culture, I 
wherein he says 90° may be harmless, or, in some cases, beneficial, yet j 
85° is a more safe proceeding ; here, it appears, the plants have been j 
constantly kept in a temperature of 90° or 95°, and are doing well.” 
In reply to your first—“Which is the best mode of heating abed for ; 
pines?” we answer—Tanks, or piping; being by far more certain than 
fermenting materials. 2nd. “ Are they best grown in pots, or in the 
open mould ? ” This depends on the kind, and the objects of the culti- j 
vator; this question may not be answered in the abstract. If the only 1 
problem was, how to grow the largest pine, we should say, plant out in 
accordance with nature, all other accessories to perfection being present. . 
But this answer is far from settling the whole question ; kinds and con- , 
ditions urge other considerations, 3rd. “ If successions have been grown 
in a temperature of 90° or 95° bottom-heat, may they be allowed that 
temperature until they fruit ? ” The idea of setting up one standard of 
bottom-heat, irrespective of the seasons and the atmospheric conditions, 
