October 30. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
71 
do better than those for the amateur, if lie have a well- 
protected and sheltered nook in which to put them, and 
under cover of a thatched roof or bee-house. 
Mr. Munn’s bar and frame hive is worthy of notice (in 
addition to its beautiful adaptation to its peculiar end) for 
the ingenuity with which its inventor has sought to remedy 
the inconvenience arising to the close-observing amateur 
from the habit of stopping up and choking every (even the 
smallest) aperture with propolis. Until, however, we can 
alter the instinct which urges the bee to stop up every crevice 
in its home, Mr. Munn will find it necessary, from time to 
time, to modify and alter his hive. The truth is, it is im¬ 
possible so to construct a hive of several compartments, 
that every compartment shall easily separate from its fasten¬ 
ings, and be perfectly at command for inspection; but the 
scientific bee-keeper will find Mr. Munn’s hive a decided 
improvement on that of Huber. As an invaluable addition 
to the apiarian observatory it is well worthy of notice. 
We have, also, a newly modified, and elaborately con¬ 
structed Nutt hive, by Mr. Phillips, the hundred-and-first 
attempt to remedy the evils of the Nutt principle. In¬ 
genious, unquestionably, as the hive is, it looks far too 
expensive a structure for the amateur of moderate income. 
I might mention a variety of other hives in addition to 
those I have mentioned above, but, though I saw ingenuity 
in all, none save those I have mentioned struck me as 
introducing any really useful improvement. I ought to 
state that I regret much having omitted to examine Mr. 
Kitchener’s new ventilating apparatus, but we are promised 
a description of it in The Cottage Gardener. —A Country 
Curate. 
HOME WINE MAKING. 
I have much pleasure in hearing that the manufacture of 
home made wines is exciting interest among the readers 
of The Cottage Gardener, and willingly contribute 
another paper on the subject, and allude to some minor 
details for which I had not space in my former communica¬ 
tions. 
And first as to bottling. In all wines intended to be 
effervescent, the bottles should be of the kind known as 
“ champagne bottles,” as such are much' stronger than the 
common wine bottle, and, consequently, less liable to burst. 
They may be procured second hand, in most towns, at a 
reasonable rate; I purchased some last year at fifteen 
shillings the gross or twelve dozen, quarts, and at twelve 
shillings the gross, pints ; they should of course he made 
scrupulously clean before they are used. The corks should 
be the “ best white,” which will cost about six shillings the 
gross. It is false economy to use any hut the best. The 
bottles should be filled to within two inches or so of the 
mouth, and the corks driven in tightly, so as to leave rather 
more than lialf-an-inch outside the bottle. This operation 
may be much facilitated by using a cork-presser, and 
dipping (not soaking) them in water as they are used. 
The next step after corking, is securing the corks with wire, 
or string, or both. The proper wire (the newly-introduced 
flexible wire is the best) is to be irarchased by the pound at 
most ironmongers, ready cut into lengths. I fear that, 
without diagrams, I cannot describe intelligibly the proper 
way to fix the wire, which to be neat and efficient must be 
applied in a peculiar manner; but if my readers will 
examine attentively the w'ay in which the cork of a bottle of 
soda-water is secured, they will understand the matter 
better than by a page of description. I have usually found 
one wire to be sufficient security, but if it be preferred that 
the cork should take the appearance of a champagne cork, 
a second wire or piece of string may be put on, crossing the 
first at right angles; and if just previously to the wiring, 
the cork above the bottle be dipped, so as to soften it, into a 
little hot water, it will be found that the pressure of the wire 
will cause it to assume the peculiar rounded top which is 
desired. If it be wished still further to give it the external 
appearance of foreign wine, some thin tinfoil may be cut 
into strips, and pasted round the cork and neck of the 
bottle; but this covering, as far as my experience goes, is 
more ornamental than useful, and, of course, involves some 
additional trouble and expense. 
When the wine is all bottled, which it should be between 
November and March, it should be laid down in a cool 
cellar; the bottles to remain on their side until April, when 
they may be placed upright, again to be laid down the 
beginning of winter, and placed upright again the following 
April. By attending to this direction, which is one given by 
Mr. Roberts in his book, that gentleman says that he has no 
doubt wines will retain their effervescence many years. I 
have myself no practical experience of the utility of chang¬ 
ing the position of the bottles, but I have no doubt that it 
will tend to prevent their bursting, which sometimes occurs 
in the hot weather, though I have never met with this 
casualty myself, beyond an occasional bottle or two, and I 
fancy it will seldom occur if the wine has been properly 
attenuated, and is housed in a cellar of an uniform cool tem¬ 
perature. 
And now with regard to the addition, so commonly ordered 
in receipts for made wines, of brandy or other spirit. It has 
been considered that this addition tends to preserve the 
wines, and causes them to be kept for a longer time without 
turning sour; but this idea is founded in error, for we have 
the authority of Dr. Maccullock for saying that “the 
addition of spirit will decompose wine,” and that “ the pro¬ 
cess, though it may be slow, is certain.” If wines are 
improperly fermented, the admixture of sugar and brandy, 
may cover the flavor of the vinegar in their composition, but 
these additions will fail to render them wholesome; and I 
am certain that any one following carefully the directions I 
have laid dowm in my previous papers, feeling his way as it 
were with the aid of the saccharometer, will have no 
occasion to turn his wine into “ grog ” in order to render it 
palatable. 
Substances intended to impart colour (such as beet-root, 
or cochineal for a rosy tint, raspings of burnt crust, or 
burnt sugar for a darker brown shade), as well as those 
intended to give an aroma (as cowslips in cowslip wine, 
elder flowers in frontiniac), should be added after the 
height of the fermentation is over, as that process destroys 
or alters both colour and aroma in a great degree; the wine¬ 
maker should likewise bear in mind that in all boiled 
liquors, as in parsnip and such wines, it is more difficult to 
excite the necessary fermentation, and often an artificial 
ferment, such as yeast, must be added. In those wines, too, 
made in winter, or early spring, as raisin or orange wine, it 
is necessary to keep them near a fire while undergoing 
fermentation, or, at least, to be careful to conduct tins 
process in a warm and equable temperature.—II. W. Live it, 
Wells, Somerset. 
NOTES ON BEE-IvEEriNG. 
Taking off Glasses and Small Hives. —At page 278 of 
your last volume but one, I pointed out a method that I had 
accidentally discovered for taking off supers, in the hope that 
some of my brother bee-keepers would try it in the course 
of the season just passed away, and I shall be glad to know 
whether any of them have done so. As the communication 
appeared at that season of the year when our minds are 
directed to the more active, though, perhaps, not more 
pleasing, operations of the apiary, it may have escaped their 
recollection; but as the progenitor of the bantling, it has, of 
course, not escaped mine, and I now send you the result of 
my own trials of it. I have tried it in four cases: hi the 
first three it was entirely successful, and I carried away the 
plunder of a glass, a straw hive, and a wooden concern, with 
glasses, described at page 57 of the last volume, the next 
morning in triumph ; in the fourth I failed, yet my failure 
has confirmed me in my favourable view of the method, and 
that for reasons that will presently appear. Upon finding 
the bees still amongst the combs (it was a large glass, 
holding about 12 lbs., that I was operating upon), I resorted 
to the old method of carrying the glass into the shade, and 
commencing the tapping process, but all my efforts were to 
no purpose; not wishing to waste any further time about 
the matter, I stupified the bees with the Racodium cellare, 
and quickly effected a clearance. Then I discovered that 
about 40 of the cells nearest to the stock hive were filled 
with the larva? of young bees, and that the queen herself, 
following the example of another illustrious personage in 
these realms, was on a visit to her northern subjects. 
