242 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
June 29. 
was a largo swarm, but, unfortunately for him, it remained 
in the hive only an hour or two, and then betook itself to a 
hollow tree, where it remains at the present time, caused, I 
have very little doubt, by the hive having been drenched 
with a mixture of beer, sugar, fennel, bean leaves, or some¬ 
thing of the kind. It is most difficult to convince some 
persons that a clean, dry hive is much more pleasing to the 
bees than one smeared with dressing, as it is termed, which, 
instead of inducing them to remain in it, is the chief cause 
I of their leaving it. 
Taylor’s Bee hive. —I am pleased to find these hives 
are working so well; a description of them, with my opinion 
as to the many advantages they possess beyond any other 
kind of hive for the amateur, may be found at page 198, 
vol. vii, of The Cottage Gardener. A few weeks since, 
I received a letter from a gentleman in Cheshire, asking 
! my opinion as to a weak stock in one of these hives (a late, 
i or a second swarm, I imagine). He says, “ I have a weak 
j stock in a Taylor’s bar-hive, and two others in the same, 
very strong, and getting crowded with bees: Would it 
answer to take one, two, or three bars out of one of the 
strong ones with plenty of brood in them into the weak 
one ? ” My reply was, “ Do it, by all means; but do it 
immediately, and let me know the result.” He writes 
again on the 20th of May, saying, “ I received your 
answer to my enquiries on the 12tli, and made every 
preparation, as you directed, for the operation on the follow¬ 
ing day, the 13th. Myself and my assistants being well 
protected, I commenced at one o'clock, the day being very 
fine, and many of .the bees of the strong hive being out in 
the field ; the strong hive is now two years old, and the weak 
one was a swarm of last year. I made use of the fumigating 
bellows, as you proposed; unscrewed the top of the weak 
hive, found it beautifully filled with combs, but scarcely a 
handful of bees altogether, and very little honey. I felt 
quite distressed and puzzled, feeling sure it would be of no 
use to add the combs to so small a quantity of bees, but 
determined upon trying to form an artificial swarm, although 
too early in the season, and no drones having appeared. I, 
therefore, took two bars out of the centre of the box with j 
great ease, quite whole, laid them on one side, then pro¬ 
ceeded to what I expected would have been a desperate job; 
puffed a little smoke into the hive, unscrewed the top, took 
it gently otf, up flew a tremendous cloud, but my assistant 
made good use of the bellows amongst them, and in a few 
seconds they dispersed, so that I could detach the combs 
from the sides with a hook knife, for the purpose, with the 
greatest ease, and gently took out two of the centre well 
filled with brood, and two queens cells on them, put them 
in the centre of the weak box, and then put the empty 
combs into the strong one, brushed the bees out of the way 
with a feather, slided the tops on and screwed them down, 
then carried the strong box sixty or seventy yards on to the 
stand the weak one was taken from, and shut them up till 
Monday morning. They commenced working a little the 
same day, and have improved every day since, and are now 
working very well; there has been little or no confusion 
amongst them. The weak hive was joined by a good 
quantity of bees that were out, and it lias worked very well 
up to the present time, and it is difficult to sag which is the 
strongest." 
Thus an artificial swarm has been made with the least 
possible trouble; indeed, bees in these hives, as I have said 
before, are entirely under the control of their owners, either 
for makiug artificial swarms by the above method, prevent¬ 
ing swarms by taking out the combs on which queen’s cells 
are formed, cutting them out and returning the combs, 
supplying queens to queenless stocks, or strengthening weak 
ones; besides the advantage of taking a bar of honey for 
the table whenever required during the working season. 
It is Mr. Taylor’s eight-bar-hive that I am now speaking 
of; a great improvement this upon his original bar-hive, or 
his double bar-hive as figured and described in vol. i. of 
The Cottage Gardener. 
Queen Bees. —There appear to have been more queens 
bred this year than usual, for several swarms have divided 
upon leaving the parent hive, and alighted in different 
places, each having a queen ; others, after having been hived 
a few days, send out a swarm, the consequence, no doubt, of 
two queens having accompanied them from the parent stock. 
SHAKSPERE STRAWBERRY. 
Some eight or nine years ago, I obtained from the 
neighbourhood of Stratford-on-Avon, a Strawberry under 
this name, which was then said to be new; and, in 1847,1 
published, in “ The Manual of Fruits,” a short description 
of it, to the effect that it was earlier, more prolific, and of a 
better colour than Keen's Seedling. A short time after the 
publication of that work, some person, who fancied he 
knew better, asserted, in “ The Gardener’s Chronicle,” that 
it was not a new variety, but identical with Keen’s Seedling, j 
The little I had seen of it did not warrant me in refuting 
the statement at the time, and it was allowed to pass. Now, 
however, I think it right, after having grown these Straw 
berries for the last six years, in adjoining rows, and on the 
same soil, and after having closely compared them, to repeat j 
what I wrote seven years ago; that Shaksperc is a distinct 
variety, and in every way superior to Keen’s Seedling ; indeed, [ 
it requires no close observation to see the difference between 
them. Keen’s Seedling is a rank-growing, rampant bush, 
and, for the last three years, entirely destitute of fruit; 
while the other is not half the size, and producing more 
fruit than leaves. It seems to me that the Shakspere is 
very similar to what is now called Hooper's Seedling, and is, 
consequently, a variety well worth cultivating. — Robert 
Hogg. 
THE ORCHARD HOUSE. * 
This two-shilling pamphlet has reached a third edition, 
and deservedly so, for it teaches how fruit may be easily 
and unfailingly grown under glass “by the mere Cottage 
Gardener with his cheaply-constructed house, ten feet by ten.” 
The last winter, and still more severe spring, tested the 
efficiency both of Ewing’s Glass Wall and Rivers’s Orchard 
House. The first has thus been proved incapable of pro¬ 
tecting the blossoms enclosed by it. At the Horticultural 
Society’s Chiswick Garden, the fruit blossoms within Ewing’s 
Walls were destroyed by the severe fr<*sts in April. At 
Sawbridgeworth, on the contrary, the blossoms were all 
preserved, and Mr. Rivers, writing to us a few days since, is 
well warranted in saying:—“My Orchard House is a great 
triumph. The trees are all pictures of health and fertility; 
without it, all would have been desolate this trying spring, 
for all the fruit out-of-doors perished, except some cherries 
and two or three sorts of plums ; and, by an extraordinary 
freak, green-gage plums on some old trees have set well, and 
are as thick as blackberries; and yet generally this is the 
most tender of all.” 
The following extracts are among the fresh additions to 
the new edition :— 
“ Retarding of Fruits. —A great advantage may be 
derived from Orchard House trees in the facility they give 
of retarding by some weeks, peaches, nectarines, and apricots, 
so that Royal George peaches and Moor Park apricots may 
be eaten in perfection in October. The method is very 
simple: towards the end of July, the trees should be 
gradually prepared for removal, by tilting up the pots on one 
side, so as to break off half the young roots ; the pots must 
then be replaced, and suffered to rest a week or nine days, 
and then the other side should be tilted, so as to break off 
the remaining roots. The trees should then be removed to 
the north side of a wall or fence, in the open air, guarding 
carefully against snails, which often injure apricots; they 
may remain there till the first or second week in September, 
and then be removed to the Orchard House to ripen their 
fruit.” 
“RirENiNG Orchard House Pears and Plums in the 
orEN air. —Plums that ripen in August, and all kinds of 
pears, are apt to be deficient in flavour when at all crowded 
in the Orchard House, owing to its scarcely being possible 
to give them sufficient air; this, however, is easily remedied. 
The trees should be removed to some sunny sheltered 
situation, about the second week in June, when the fruit is 
fully set; summer plums will then ripen their fruit at the 
usual period, and also pears, whether early or late. The 
surface of the pots should be covered with a coating of three 
* The Orchard House, or the Cultivation of Fruit Trees in pots under 
(class. By Thomas Rivers, of the Nurseries, Sawbridgeworth, Herts. 
Longman and Co., London. 
