THK COTTAGE GARDENER. 
310 
[August 1 l. 
MISCELLANEOUS INFORMATION. 
STATE OF FRUIT CROrS. 
Peaches and 
Nectarines. 
Apricots. 
Plums. 
Figs. 
Gooseberries. 
Currants. 
Apples. 
i 
Pears. 
Exeter. Westerly ex¬ 
posure, about 600 feet 
above sea level. 
Thin. 
Thin. 
Very thin. 
Heavy. 
Heavy. 
Heavy. 
Heavy. 
Middling, j 
Tunbridge Wells 
(Kent). Soil, loam, on 
sandstone; not liable 
to fogs. 
Failed. 
Failed. 
Magnum 
Bonum, Dia¬ 
mond, &c., 
good ; Reine 
Claude,failed 
Abundant. 
Excellent. 
Excellent. 
Magnificent. 
On Quince 
stocks, good. 
Blackiieatii (Kent). 
Failed. 
Failed. 
Thin. 
•• 
Abundant. 
Abundant. 
Abundant. 
•• 
Chelmsford (Essex). 
Low lying j liable to 
j fogs. 
Hardly any. 
Hardly any. 
Very few. 
Abundant. 
Abundant. 
Good crop. 
Very few. 
Hull (Yorkshire). Soil, 
low’, on clay. 
Very thin. 
Very thin. 
Very thin. 
r* 
Full crop. 
Full crop. 
Full crop. 
Partial. 
i Ravenglass (Cumber¬ 
land). Valley near the 
sea; snow on the moun¬ 
tains on the 4th of July. 
•• 
.. - 
Scarce. 
•• 
Thorough 
crop. 
Thorough 
crop. 
Scarce. 
Scarce. 
REES RAISING AN ARTIFICIAL QUEEN. 
My apiary having now increased itself to nine stocks, it 
would be but a wearisome business to both reader and 
writer to carry on its history in anything like a systematic 
order. As an apiary, therefore, we must bid it farewell. I 
propose, however, from time to time, to give some account of 
the individual hives in it, as occasion shall offer; and I 
doubt not that many of your apiarian readers will be glad to 
follow the course of an experimentalist, sometimes, it may 
be, erratic and unsuccessful, but ofttimes instructive and 
amusing. I do not pretend to hold myself up in this place 
as a model bee-keeper, or to set forward my treatment of 
bees as the type of what ought generally to prevail, yet I 
am vain enough to hope that I may be able to suggest some 
useful hints soon to old bee-masters, and to spur some of 
our younger and more ardent lovers of the honey-bee, to 
aim at the discovery, if possible, of new facts, and an 
improved system in bee-management. As Mr. Payne, our 
ingenuous and kind-hearted chief, has given us a stimulus 
to exertion, by stating his belief that our favourite re¬ 
creative pursuit is "■still in its infancy," we will persevere, 
j in hope of acquiring fresh knowledge, and in full confidence 
| of success. 
I have had some interesting experience, and curious, too, 
this season, the detail of which will occupy two or three 
articles in your valuable paper. The year opened, as every¬ 
one will remember, with a temperature extraordinarily mild 
and even, so much so, that many gardens (my own amongst 
! the number) presented quite a March-like appearance very 
early in January. My bees felt its influence as well as my 
flowers, for on the 12th I had quite a flight of pollen 
gatherers from two artificial stocks of last autumn formation 
(only half full of comb), which were situated in one of my 
j cottage windows, twenty feet from the ground. They 
1 gathered chiefly from the laurestinus, of which there was a 
i fine bush in the garden. That these stocks bred very early, 
was further evidenced by the rejection of several young 
grubs imperfectly developed, though fully grown about five 
j weeks later. Notwithstanding this early disposition to 
breed, their stocks, I am bound to say, have on the whole 1 
I disappointed me, although both, at the time I write (July 
l!)th), are very heavy, and from one of them I hope to take 
two full combs of honey from a corner of the hive in a few 
days (weight probably 8 lbs.), in addition to 3-[ lbs. already 
taken in a bell-glass. The other has worked some beautiful 
combs in a large glass surmounting their box, but what 
honey they stored in it at the end of June has since been 
i carried below. Roth these hives, however, would, I am 
pursuaded, have done much more (bad as the honey-season 
has been), but for the fatal gales of wind we had here in 
the early part of June, which must have destroyed thousands . 
of my bees from every hive, who having onqe issued were 
utterly unable to return, owing to the exposed situation of 
the apiary. Early as the bees stirred from these hives* in 
search of pollen, it was not till full a month later that any 
bees from my other stocks were discovered so laden. On 
the 12th of February, a few from my original stock (A)—a 
swarm of May 25th, 1849—were seen to enter their hive 
with pollen on their thighs, and in a few days every one of 
my above-ground stocks, six in number, were, and continued, 
in full activity as the weather permitted. 
My original stock (A) became now air object of great 
interest to me. Its queen, I considered, must now be draw¬ 
ing near the completion of her full term of life; as in May 
or June of the current year she would, probably, attain the 
age of four years. Would she die before making preparation 
for the welfare of the community ? and if she did, would 
the bees have strength enough to recover in due time ? 
These, and other questions of an interesting nature, sug¬ 
gested themselves to my mind, so I determined narrowly to 
watch the course of events. As April advanced, I became 
aware (active as they had been before) that less and less 
pollen was carried into the hive every-day, and it almost 
ceased by the 25th. I resolved on this day, therefore, to j 
inspect the condition of the hive, which I did after fu- i 
migating the bees with Uncodium cellare.y Not an egg of 
any kind was found in the box, though I cut out much comb 
(thinking it a good opportunity to renovate it, much of it 
being already quite black, though only two years old), and 
only a few grubs yet remained not ceiled over, and most of 
these were drones; nor were there more than a few dozen j 
cells at all occupied with brood of any kind. Evidently the i 
queen had ceased to lay for at least a week past (when 
probably she died), and then very languidly. There were, 
however, two royal cells artificially formed, ceiled over near 
the top, in the warmest part of the hive. These I cut 
carefully out with the comb belonging to them, and adjusted 
in a five-inch glass, which (well covered with warm flannels) 
I set over the centre hole of the hive, as soon as the j 
fumigated bees, none of whom (and they were very numer¬ 
ous) were destroyed, had been returned to it. They did not, 
however, take to the glass till the following day, though 
frantic with excitement in the interim ; and when they had 1 
taken to it, so cold was the temperature at night (often 
below the freezing point) that I found the glass deserted 
every morning, though re-occupied again by day. On the 
29th one of the royal cells was found open and empty, but | 
as there was much whitish matter at the bottom, I con- j 
eluded that the bees had destroyed the grub. Rut what j 
could this mean ? Was there a reigning queen after all in the 
* I should be very glad to learn what success, if any, those of your 
readers have met with, who formed artificial stocks last autumn. 
t This operation was more successful than any of a like kind I had 
before experienced, but I had the same difficulty to dislodge the hees . 
from between the combs. 
