November 20. 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
110 
although no one could say he had stoned the creature to 
death, yet no one could positively say he had not. “ Let the 
duck he feathered,” his mistress at last said. It was done j 
and several red marks appeared on the body, evidently 
proving that the duck had died a violent death. “ There,” 
said the chief accuser, “ there, ma’am, is the proof. See how 
I the stones have wounded it; it has been stoned to death.” 
i The fate of poor little James hung by a slender thread. His 
mistress looked closely at them, and then said, “ Those 
wounds are not from stones, but from the teeth of a dog.” 
Impossible ! there was not a dog about the place. How 
! could it be? The poor duck had clearly been driven and 
stoned to death. 
A further and closer inquiry was made, until the matter 
reached a man who had been for some days thrashing in the 
barn. He said he remembered seeing a gentleman’s ser¬ 
vant coming away from the house, followed by a large dog, 
and that the dog flew at the ducks and worried them, but 
was called off before he had done any further mischief. 
This fact recalled to the minds of the family the circum¬ 
stance of a message having been brought by a friend’s servant 
the very day before the duck was found dead, and that he 
had been accompanied by a dog. 
It has been said that truth lies at the bottom of a well; 
and the difficulty there sometimes is in reaching it, in find¬ 
ing it out, and bringing it to light, may be likened to diving 
into a deep well to bring something up that has been 
dropped into it. If man’s unassisted reason only was to be 
trusted, we might be ready to despair in many cases; but 
the God of Truth reigns over all the world; and His infinite 
wisdom and power can do all things. Nothing is hid from 
His all-seeing eye—innocence as well as guilt stands con¬ 
fessed before Him, and in His good time will be brought 
surely to light. In the case of little children the good 
providence of God is as fully concerned as in that of men ; 
they are just as much the objects of His tender care as 
their parents are ; and, therefore, children may be sure that 
in all their little simple affairs their Heavenly Father watches 
over them, and takes charge of them. Poor little James 
was in a “ great strait” in the matter of the duck ; but God 
knew his innocence, and made it appear. No eye on earth 
saw the dog worry the duck, except that of the man in the 
barn; but one evidence was enough to prove his innocence, 
and that evidence God had appointed. He has declared to 
us in His own Word, “and He shall bring forth thy righteous¬ 
ness as the light, and thy judgment as the noon-day.” It 
does not always happen that things are understood or dis¬ 
covered quite so soon as in this case; many persons have 
to wait under unjust suspicion for many years, but what 
the Lord has pledged Himself to do, that He will perform 
when the fittest time comes, and none shall turn Him aside. 
We are told to “ rest in the Lord, and wait patiently for him.” 
Let us do this, for He is our confidence and strength. 
Now, though some of us may be old, and wise, and great, 
we are all helpless as children without the help of God. 
Our worldly affairs may be of a great deal more importance 
and weight than a dead duck, but still we may all learn a 
lesson from little James. Let us cleave closely to truth 
even in the smallest matters—not because it is the best 
policy, but because God “ desireth truth in the inward 
partsand what He has enjoined, He will honour and 
bless. Let “ both young men and maidens, old men and 
children,” approve themselves “ unto God ” in all them works 
: and ways, and then they may safely trust Him for making 
! them clear in the sight of men. 
BEES. 
; Permit me here to tender my sincere thanks to your cor¬ 
respondent, “ R.,” for his kind and flattering mention of my 
papers, my book, and myself, in your 161st Number. It is 
encouraging to receive an occasional notice, like this, of the 
! favourable estimation of one’s labours by those for whose 
| benefit and amusement we write ; and the more so, when 
| one is venturing (if I may use a common metaphor) into an 
unexplored ocean, which is too often exposed to the winds 
| and storms of prejudice, and the currents and eddies of 
something worse. >-• 
Your correspondent requests my opinion as to his chance 
of success in forming swarms artificially by fumigation. His 
proposed plan is, to say the least, ingenious, but I should 
be disposed to doubt its probable success, and for the fol¬ 
lowing reasons :—Because, first, the bees do not, when fumi¬ 
gated, crowd between two combs only; wherever they hap- j 
pen to be in the hive, as soon as the fumes of the narcotic 
reach them, they make an upward movement; so that, if the 
top of the hive were lifted off, they would be found congre¬ 
gated in crowds in the spaces between every one of the combs y j 
and not, as I said above, between two combs only. I have 
several times fumigated bar-hives this year, and on lifting, 
the moveable top I have always found those which did not 
fall congregated in separate detachments. Now, it is evi¬ 
dent that (supposing the bees would ascend at all through a ' 
hole at the top of their hive) only those would ascend which 
happened to be among those combs which communicated 
directly with the hole, and who shall say whether the queen 
is likely to be there or not? In bar-hives, if the top was 
removed, this difficulty would not exist, because the space 
between every comb would communicate directly throughout 
its whole length (if every comb was properly attached to its 
bar) with the upper hive. But here, second, I see another 
difficulty, viz., that the smoke of the narcotic, haring always, 
by a known law, a tendency to rise, would soon fill the upper 
hive with its fumes, as well as the lower, and then it remains 
to be seen whether the bees would attempt to climb up its 
sides, in the hope of escaping its poisonous breath. But I 
should be sorry to stand in the way of a trial of the plan ; it j 
might succeed, and certainly there is no harm in trying. 
Your correspondent seems to long for “ a more easy method ” 
of forming artificial swarms. I only wish he could be pre- ( 
sent when I am operating on one of my stocks in May ; I j 
could, I think, convince him that the driving process is quite 
as simple as he could wish. I allow that when hives are 
rouyhly handled, there is danger of the combs becoming dis¬ 
engaged, especially in the case of swarms of a former season, 
in which the comb is still fresh and delicate; but I think he j 
has greatly overrated the danger. Perhaps I have been the 
unintentional cause of inspiring him with a fear as to its 
general success, by the incident recounted in appendix F of 
the “ English Beekeeper ; ” and yet, though I have formed 
twelve or fourteen swarms in this way, in no case, save in 
the one instance there recorded, have I found the combs 
break, even in young stocks. The fact is, the process of j 
driving, to make swarms artificially, has been unreasonably 
represented as difficult. Till practice gave me a familiarity 
with the habits of bees, I once thought it such myself; and 
I well remember the fright and fuss I was in on the first 
occasion of my trying it. Coolness and courage are the only 
requisites, and if people would but have faith in the affirma¬ 
tion of the experienced, they would, with as little fear, turn 
up a hive of bees, as put their fingers into a box of confec¬ 
tionary. In my own practice I have simplified the process 
greatly. All the implements I now use are a pail, an empty 
hive (a little larger in diameter, if possible, than the hive 
upon which I am going to operate, so as partly to slip over 
it), and a cane, or flexible stick, not less than two feet long ; 
the operation, too, is performed without any assistance. 
First, I take up the full hive (having some hours, or the 
evening before, lifted it an inch from the stand) and gently 
turn it upside down in the pail; I next, very deliberately and 
carefully, fix the empty hive over the other, holding it in its 
position with one hand, while with the other I rap quickly 
and lightly against the sides of the lower hive; in a very few 
minutes the bees are up, queen and all, in the upper hive, 
which is shortly taken off and put on the old stand, while 
the other is turned up on a board, the entrance being now- 
stopped up, and removed to another stand ; there it remain's 
till the third morning following, when the bees are released. 
The process in this way is almost too simple to be interes t¬ 
ing. You may be as deliberate and cool as you like; the 
bees are so startled at the sudden admission of light, as 
scarcely to move at all, and even when the tapping begins, 
though their entrance-hole may be open, they rarely attempt 
to fly. Instead of waiting till after breakfast to conduct this 
business, I now prefer doing it in the early morning, about 
five or six o’clock, a.m., if the weather is fine and mild; thus 
no time is lost. 
But, if this plan is still thought difficult or dangerous, 
will the following be thought easier ? Turn up a strong 
hive, and cut or break off from one of the combs a good 
pidce, say five inches square, containing both eggs and young 
