888 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
September 16. 
institutions, as an honest and comfortable provision for a 
i time of need; seeking the blessing of Him, who has pro¬ 
mised an abundant blessing to all who “ walk in my statutes, 
and keep my commandments, and do them.” 
THE NEW PLAN OF MANAGING SWARMS. 
If your readers will turn to page 298 of the current 
volume (viii.) of The Cottage Gardener, they will find 
the first notice of a trial of the new plan of managing bees 
at swarming time, by your correspondent C. R. R. I have 
lately received from him a very obliging letter, which, jointly 
with his former communication, I shall make the text of my 
present paper on the general results of the said new system, 
as they have hitherto come in from various parts of the 
country. “ I wish to inform you,” writes C. it. R., “ that 
the hive about which I wrote to you before, and which 
swarmed June Oth [see page 298], immediately after its 
removal threw out pints of drones, both grubs and perfect 
insects, but I have no remembrance of seeing any external 
massacre.* You will be glad to hear that this good old 
hive contains at least 35 lbs. of honey, and I was perfectly 
astonished to find an 8 lb. straw cap (which I only put on 
with a view to give the bees room) chock full of honey in 
perfection, ceiled throughout. The swarm you know the 
history of.” This swarm (which took the place of the old 
hive, and must therefore have been very large), though put 
into “ a very larye hive” was evidently too populous for its 
hive-room, as it actually threw off two virgin swarms between 
the Oth and 17th of July !! And I would observe here, if 
the old stock, with its much-reduced population, managed to 
harvest a store of 43 lbs. of honey, how much greater would 
have been the weight of the swarm had it been supplied 
with a sufficient space to store honey in! C. R. R. pro¬ 
ceeds :—“ I treated three other hives on your plan with 
perfect success. In each case drones and drone grubs were 
thrown out, but not to any great extent, as in the first case. 
I have not my dates by me, but these three last swarmed 
about June 18th, and one of them was treated, by chance, 
upon your plan of killing the first queen and returning the 
swarm; + at least, I found the queen dead at the entrance, 
which no doubt delayed the swarm the nine days you speak 
of, for it at last came out enormous; notwithstanding all 
that, I put it on the stand of the old hive, and the old hive 
has managed to pick up 20 lbs. clear, or as near as can be. 
This swarm has done wonders; it has 38 lbs. of honey, and 
it has given me about 30 lbs.” Of course we can readily 
believe C. R. R. when he says, “the season here (Yorkshire, 
North Riding) has been good. I have, from an apiary of 
twelve hives, taken full 180 lbs. of top honey (from boxes, 
caps, &c.), besides an amazing quantity of other sorts, and I 
can honestly say that I have not a hive with less than 
20 lbs. of -winter store, I perhaps might truly say 25 lbs., in 
it." Now this report of a first trial of the new system tells 
its own tale; it needs little comment. Plenty of virgin 
honey—no casts—old stocks, in good condition, presided 
over by youthful queens—these promised results have been 
fulfilled to the letter. To the above account I will add the 
report of a trial of the new system by a plain cottager, sent 
to me from Cornwall by the clergyman of the parish, a 
brother apiarian, who himself, so late as the 3rd of July, 
wrote to me in despair “ of the grievous state ” of his bees, 
assuring me that his groanings were not a whit behind my 
own. “ Before I left home,” he says (i.e. about the 5tli of 
August), “I got the cottager, who has been managing one 
* I would here notice the remarks on this subject lately made by 
“Investigator.” The large stock of which I spoke, and which threw 
out an immense quantity of drones, chiefly grubs and young full-fledged 
insects, immediately after the issue of a monster natural swarm (June 
1st, 1851), treated in the old fashioned way, was well supplied with 
honey, both old and new, but it did not swarm again. I have, however, 
since found it is by no means an uncommon occurrence to witness the 
massacre of drones in the early season. Nutt speaks of it, and other 
writers; and I heard of a similar occurrence which happened to a 
cottager’s hive this summer, just after the issue of a natural swarm, 
which was treated in the usual way. That, however, which on the old 
plan was an exception to the ordinary rule, seems as if it would be the 
ride under the new system. May it not have something to do with a 
foresight on the bees’ part that they will not need to swarm again ? for 
it is curious, that in these instances they chiefly destroy the younger 
drones, those, in fact, which would be required for Vue younger queens! 
7 See “ English Bee-Keeper,” pages 34—37. 
of bis stocks after your system, to weigh the old stock and 
the swarm. The swarm, which was a very large one, issued 
from an ordinary cottage hive so late as Sunday the lit/* of 
July. It was put into a straw hive capable of containing 
full six-and-a-half gallons of wheat, and very soon after 
being hived was placed on the stand which the parent hive 
had occupied, the parent hive itself being taken to a stand 
from five to six feet distant, I forget which. The old stock 
appeared nearly depopulated, but the workers, next day, if 
not the same day, set about expelling the drones. However, 
it gradually gained strength, and on the 5th of August ( i.e. 
in twenty-five days), its contents weighed 25 lbs. It did not 
swarm a second time. The swarm in the six-and-a-half- 
gallon-hive having worked its comb down to the floor board, 
had a very small hive placed on its top, and the contents of 
these hives weighed, on the 5th instant, 45 lbs. My cottage 
friend is highly delighted with his success. He would have 
managed a second swarm on your plan, but it flew off. He 
has now three stocks, all of which he will reserve until 
another spring, to be managed on your improved system.” 
“ There can be no doubt of the plan being an admirable 
one,” as my friend observes, “if in the great majority of cases 
it proves anything like as successful and profitable as the 
above.” That it should sometimes fail must be expected. 
B. B. gives an instance of such failure at page 346 (vol. 
viii.).* Bees are not amenable to rule, and swarming 
ofttimes takes place, in certain seasons especially, when the 
young royal brood is in a very backward condition. To re¬ 
move the old stock under such circumstances would probably i 
be fatal. To avoid such an evil I have already suggested 
the propriety of examining the condition of the royal brood 
after the swarm has issued and been put on the old stand ; 
if none of the royal cells are ceiled over, it were well to treat 
the swarm on the old plan. And yet an instance occurred 
to myself this very summer, in which an old stock (whose 
swarm of May 15th was treated according to my plan) had no 
ceiled royal cell, in fact the royal grubs, of which there were 
two, were neither of them above five or six days old from 
the laying of the egg! and yet this old stock to-day (Sept. 
4th) I found to weigh 28 lbs. of contents ; its swarm, having 
an old queen, did not do so well, for on plundering it to¬ 
day very little more than 20 lbs. of honey was found in it, 
though it was put into a hive filled with comb. We are not 
quite certain if it swarmed or not, but if it did not the old 
queen must have died, and the bees have reared a young 
one in her place, which would account for the small store of 
honey, small even for the bad season in this locality, for it 
was a good-sized swarm at its issue on the loth of May.— 
A Country Curate. 
COCHIN-CHINAS v. SPANISH AND DORKINGS. 
I am a gardener as well as poultry-keeper, and pay great 
attention to both; consequently read The Cottage Gar¬ 
dener with great interest. I will now allude to poultry, 
having during my time kept different kinds. “ Gallus ” 
speaks of the Dorking fowls as excellent nurses and table 
fowls, and I fully agree with him, but I do not know whether 
I do not prefer the Cochin-China fowls. The rich, delicious 
eggs, and the number they lay, as well as their gentle, quiet 
habits, and being good setters, and excellent on the table as 
well, I think I give them the preference to the Dorking, but 
I do not mean you to understand that I consider them better 
eating. Of the Cochin-China fowls I have two kinds ; one 
grouse-coloured, with long-partially covered legs; and the 
other canary and buff-coloured; with legs as short as the 
Dorking fowl, and covered with a great quantity of feathers, 
and with a body as square built. “ Gallus,” in his paper, 
says the Cochin-China fowls are such large eaters, but are 
good layers, and though his have laid more eggs than the 
Spanish, it has not been in proportion, which he says have, 
since February, laid six eggs a week each; therefore, if the 
Cochin-China fowls have beat them, it could have been by 
only one a week. I have kept Spanish and Cochin-China 
fowls together, and consider them well matched in eating ; 
and eat they must, to provide such a drain upon the system. 
They are greedy eaters, but if you watcb, the Dorking will 
* I would request him, and any one else who has given the new system 
a trial, to publish the results thereof, whether favourable or otherwise. 
They will be conferring a benefit on apiarian science. 
