60 
THE COTTAGE GAEDENER. 
OCTOBEE 28. 
Rhubahe. —Those who want this early, with small ex¬ 
pense, should cover the crowns with any dry litter as soon 
as the leaves can be stripped away, which will generally be 
in the first week of November. “ An empty house is better 
than a bad tenant.” And so with such things. Jack Frost 
had better be kept at a respectful distance. 
Cabbage Plants. —Let all those in seed-beds, not re¬ 
quired this autumn, be immediately “pricked out” in store- 
beds, three inches apart. Ours are already done, the soil 
dressed well with tlie covering from charred heaps, in order 
to ensure a clean and liealthy plant, which it assuredly will. 
Obdee. —This is a strange title to finish with; but let 
everything be in its place, and walks and ditches cleared by 
the middle of the montli. As far as our expeiience goes, 
order is closely related to thrift. E. Ekkington. 
THE APIARIAN’S CALENDAR.—Novemeee. 
By J. H. Payne, Esq., Author of “ The Bee-Keeper’s Ouide." 
The requirements of the apiary are hut few diudng the 
present month, provided XXmtfeedimj has been well attended 
to in the last; should it, liowever, have been neglected, no 
time must be lost in setting about it before cold w'eather 
sets in, which may now reasonably be expected. 
Flooe-boaeds. —It will be well to clean the floor-boards, 
and (the season for robbing being pretty well over, and 
the wasps having now finished their maraudings), to have 
a final examination of all the stocks, securing them -well 
against wet, and making them uj), by feeding, to eighteen 
or twenty pounds each. 
Removing Subees. —All super as well as nadir hives 
should now he removed, reducing the room occupied by 
each stock as much as possible. 
Ventilation. —In hives of wood I have always found it 
necessEiry, during the winter montlis, to withdraw one of the 
slides at the top of the hive, and place over the opening a 
feeder, or small glass, for the purpose of carrying otf the 
condensed vapour, which would othenvise run down the 
sides of the hive, and cause dampness and mouldiness to 
the combs, and sometimes the entue desti’uction of the 
stock. j\Ir. Taylor gives a drawing of a condensor for this 
purpose in his Bee-Keeper’s Manual, page 142, fourtli 
edition, which I have found to be very useful, w’here a 
feeding-pan could not well be placed. 
North Aspect. —The accounts that I continue to receive 
from persons, who, at my suggestion, have thus placed their 
bees, are, hitherto, all in favour of it. The advantages 
arising from it during the late hot weather have certainly 
been very great, but we must watch it through another 
spring before it can be generally recommended. 
Dividing Hive for obtaining Aetifici.al Swaems. —I 
have just received tlie following letter from my friend, Mr. 
Taylor, author of The Bee-Keeper’s Manual, and as it con¬ 
tains much interesting matter on this and other subjects, I 
will give it at length, for I feel assui-ed the writer will excuse 
I my making use of it. 
I “ I hope you will he able to preserve the dividing hive* 
! through the winter, that we may see what becomes of it 
I next season; so far as w'e have gone, we know the principle 
I is right, and tliat the thing will work; though I am some- 
■ what in the same sceptical position as to artificial swarms 
, as are Dr. Bevan and Mr. Golding; of course, I mean as a 
general rule, for they are sometimes, doubtless, desirable, 
, and it is well to have the means of accomplishing the 
I business, which I think my hive does, without much risk, 
trouble, or disturbance. There are, however, other uses I 
have in store for it, as I mentioned to you, of equal, and, 
' porha))s, greater importance than swarm making. Both 
I Dr. Dunbar and Miner, speak of dividing hives, hut I 
‘ followed my own devices in making the one you liave. The 
I one alluded to by Dunbar-, is, doubtless, that of Feburier, 
whose work he translated, though it was not published. Dr. 
Bevan told me a Welchman once brought him one of these 
* I have had one of these hives, which was kindly sent me by hlr, 
Taylor, at work since June, and find that it acts perfectly, so far as taking 
to pieces goes, which may be done at any time, with very little trouble, 
and still less annoyance to the bees. This hive is so constructed, that I 
I have no hesitation in saying that an artificial swarm may be obtained from 
it at pleasure during the months of May and June. 
dividing hives to inspect, as an original invention, and, 
perhaps, it was even so, although it appeared nn exact 
copy from Febui-ier’s drawings. These I never saw, and am 
rather curious to Imow how far we agree. I should always 
be inclined to caution in accusing any one of plagiarism as 
to invention, or as to an original idea, particularly wliei’e 
bees are concerned, for hundreds and thousands of heads / 
and hands liave been rtt work on their behalf for centuries. 
I could name some instances in my own case. You will 
recollect when I told you, some years ago, I had been 
scheming to find out a mode and utensil suitable for feeding 
at the top instead of the bottom of a hive ; I had never 
heard of such a procedure previously ; but you had been in 
possession of a top-feeder for forty years: and, moreover, 
when Dr. Bevan’s second edition came out, there was the 
very same thing, or nearly so. And so it was as regards 
feeding with barley-sugar, which the good Doctor recollected 
to have seen used by a friend many years ago, without 
farther thinking of it. By-the-by, if you want to defend 
the passage into a hive against an invasion by wasps, you 
have but to put a bit of barley-sugar across the mouth, and 
out will come such a body of bees that no enemy will face 
them. Repeat the dose as fast as they eat up their fortifi¬ 
cation, and the wasps will sheer off in despair. The idea 
came to me from Dr. Bevan. I once read an account of a 
new invention, by some one, for obviating the evil of damp 
in hives, in winter, by condensation, precisely the same as 
had been published by me for years. And yet, afterwards, I 
discovered that a friend had used the similar- means two 
years before me, with success. So you see how often people 
hit upon the same ideas. I could mention other things ; such, 
for instance, as a method communicated to me lately (as 
a secret), for washing a hive with salt and water previously 
to hiving a swarm into it—a practice I recollect in a dis¬ 
trict in Norfolk half-a-century ago. I sav\- it tried in two 
cases fortv years since; in one instance with success, and 
failure in'the other. Can it be right to insure a damp hive 
always in wet weather ? Even The Cottage G.vedenee of 
the Kith of September furnishes something like an example 
of a similar nature, where fumigating a hive from the top 
is alluded to, as if it were something new. All my editions, 
I think, mention it; but at pages 104 and 124, third edition, 
and page 138, fourth edition, it is described. Whether I 
was the first to think of it, I do not know ; but I have often 
practised the thing (particularly down the ventilators in 
Nutt’s hives), though, in general, common hives do not 
offer the necessary facilities. The requisite tube is a bent 
one, which, if you were a smoker instead of a driver, I would 
send you. I am inclined to agree rather with Dr. Dunbar, 
who is a mighty champion for smoke, in many operations 
on bees. However, we all have our own fancies in such 
matters, and, perhaps, it is as well each to practice what he 
best understands and succeeds in. I ought to have said, 
that the instrument I always have used is what is called 
the Oxford tube, a moveable one, as opposed to the lamp 
form, which seems only adapted, as I conceive, to bottom- 
fuming. Even for that I like the other best, as more 
easily regulated. 
“And now you will like to hear how the Observatory 
hive goes on, in which, as I told you, the bees had from 
the first been working, exposed to the full glare of day-light. 
Of course, work is pretty well over; but there is a fair store 
of honey. I never lost sight of the queen during an in¬ 
spection of half-an-hour yesterday; she is become sluggish 
and inactive, and not an egg proceeded from her, though 
a while back she laid them incessantly, to mere waste. I 
think I told you she was a yonny lady; but I liave since 
found that the swarm w-as a prime one, and her appeai-ance 
confirms it. Her extreme fertility had almost made me a 
convert to the doctrine of young queens as the best breeders, 
which, you know, I had many doubts about. My own ob¬ 
servations would seem to lead me to the belief that a ipxeen 
bee does not arrive at her full powers at first. Dr. Bevan 
spoke decidedly on this point in a letter, which I think you 
saw. For myself, I have observed that an early second 
swarm, and a late first one, coming at about the same time, I 
and not much differing as to size, did not prosper as well 
relatively as might be expected, one queen being young and 
the other old; the latter, in short, increasing the population 
the soonest and the most. It might not be so always, 
