THE COTTAGE GARDENER, 
129 
May 30.] 
having a worm-heap, or dunghill filled with worms and 
grubs, from which a spadeful or two may be thrown now and 
then to the delicate chicks. Any person who keeps a pony, 
or grows cucumbers, may make a worm-heap with the out- 
castings of the stable and the hotbed—but this cannot be 
done in a moment; it should have been put together in the 
last autumn, at the very latest. You can, however, prepare 
one now for the next year. Warmth at night, and protection 
from wet by day, are matters of necessity for turkey poults. 
Ducks.— Your pond should now be swarming with duck¬ 
lings. As every honest contrivance by which the num¬ 
ber of poultry can be multiplied may be resorted to, we 
shall mention what an experienced friend has suggested. 
If two hens be set on the same day on duck's eggs, by 
smuggling away from one hen the brood which she had 
hatched, and giving it to the other hen also, and then com¬ 
forting the bereaved bird with a batch of hen’s eggs, a brood 
of chickens will be obtained also. This certainly appears to 
be somewhat cruel. To sit fifty-two days in succession is 
no small trial of the patience of the deceived hen, yet her 
maternal longings will in the end be gratified ; and we must 
suppose, that if she found the long sitting very irksome and 
contrary to her inclination, she would not continue on 
the nest. She -nail have some reward in having a brood of 
chickens to nurse instead of ducklings, which would cause 
her much vexation of spirit when they, disregarding her 
warning voice, would indulge in aquatic sports ; and the 
other hen, to counterbalance her shorter time of sitting, has 
a double family of step-children to plague her in the sup¬ 
posed case. 
Guinea-fowes. —The distinction of sex, which we have 
not before stated, is accurately described by the Rev. Mr. 
Dixon: “An unerring rule is, that the hen alone uses the 
call note, ‘ come-back, come-back,' accenting the second 
syllable strongly, from which they are generally in Norfolk 
called ‘ come-backs.’ Of all known birds, this, perhaps, is 
the most prolific of eggs. Week after week, and month 
after month, sees no, or very rare, intermission of the daily 
deposit. Even the process of moulting is sometimes in¬ 
sufficient to draw off the nutriment the creature takes, to 
make feathers instead of eggs : and the poor thing will some¬ 
times go about half naked, in the chilly autumnal months, 
like a fowl that had escaped from the cook to avoid a prepa¬ 
ration for the spit, unable to refrain from its diurnal visit to 
the nest, and consequently unable to furnish itself with a 
new great-coat.” As Guinea-fowls, like pigeons, go in pairs, 
and are most faithful to each other, it is of course necessary 
to have a male for every female. The Guinea-hen sits 
twenty-eight days. According to the same author, a bantam 
hen is the best step-mother for Guinea-fowls, and can cover 
nine eggs, as the natural mother is too wild in her habits to 
be a good nurse of chicks. These are delicate little birds, 
and require much care when young, and often die with 
hardly any previous appearance of sickness. They do not 
mope and pine for a day or two, like young turkeys under 
similar circumstances, and then die; but in half an hour 
after being in apparent health they fall on their backs, give 
a convulsive kick or two, and fall victims, in point of fact, to 
starvation. The grubs and worms of the worm-heap are 
specially needed for them, unless they have liberty of going 
with their nurse to some orchard or field, where they may 
themselves procure insects in abundance. A free range they 
naturally require, and when once reared are very hardy and 
self-supporting. Rearing them is a capital lesson (inde¬ 
pendently of the value of the birds when raised) for in¬ 
struction in the art of rearing poultry, and for acquiring a 
knowledge of the natural history of birds, which can be best 
learned by personally attending them, and observing their 
habits. 
A great secret in rearing the more tender poultry is, 
besides feeding them very frequently during the day, to feed 
them not only very late in the day, which is easy to do, but 
very early also, which lazy persons find more difficult. 
“ Shake off dull sloth,” and meet the dawn of a summer’s 
day, or take care that your poultry-maid does so for you. 
This and the next month should exhibit the good results of 
the forethought you have been exercising during all the 
previous months of the year. For instance, everlasting 
layers should have been provided for those families in which 
the consumption of eggs is considerable. But it is almost 
too late now to remedy the deficiencies which may have 
existed in such particulars, though warning may be taken as 
to the better management for the ensuing season 
Beware of the tribe of fowl-stealers. These fellows feather 
their own nests at the expense of the honest poultry-keeper 
twice in every year—viz., at Christmas, when under the 
covert of darkness they make a heavy booty of fat turkeys, 
geese, fowls, Ac.; and, secondly, about this season, or a little 
later, when with a very innocent look they seem to be about 
gathering watercresses, or herbs for some cure, and contrive 
to bag whatever poultry they can lay hands on. 
THE BEE-KEErER’S CALENDAR.— June. 
By J. H. Payne , Esq., Author of “ The Bee-keeper's 
Guide,* " Ac. 
I am much pleased to find that my offer in the pages of 
Tue Cottage Gardener to procure the Improved Cottage 
Bee-hives for those persons who are desirous to obtain them, 
but whose distance from this place renders it a rather diffi¬ 
cult matter to accomplish, has been so largely responded to ; 
and should some of my very numerous correspondents have 
thought the time long before their hives reached them, it has, 
I beg to say, arisen entirely from the number of applications 
received, and the difficulty in having so great a number 
made in so short a time. However, as the season is, swarms 
cannot be early this year; so that they will all be supplied 
in good time I trust; for unless a very considerable change 
in the weather takes place, and that also immediately, swarms 
must not be expected before June. 
In my own apiary I have not yet seen any drones, nor have 
I heard of any having made their appearance in this neigh¬ 
bourhood (now the 13tli of May), which is already much 
later than their usual time of appearing, and which will 
make swarming, and the honey gathering season also, late ; 
but still, on this account, it may not be the less abundant; 
the honey harvest very seldom extending beyond three weeks, 
and whether it commences in June or July makes but little 
difference. The honey, perhaps, gathered in June is rather 
the best colour. 
For the method of placing hell-glasses, boxes, or small 
hives upon stocks in the improved cottage hives, see The 
Cottage Gardener, vol. ii., page 41; and for the general 
treatment of swarms, taking honey, expelling the bees from 
the glasses, Ac., Ac., see page 104 of the same volume. 
I observe in the classified list of objects which may be ad¬ 
mitted to the Exhibition of the Works of Industry oj all 
Nations, to be opened in London on the 1st of May, 1851, 
under the head “ substances used for food,” that honey is 
mentioned. This notice, I feel assured, will not fail to bring 
a host of competitors ; and should the ensuing season prove 
a favourable one, many very interesting specimens will, I 
doubt not, be brought together from all parts of the king¬ 
dom for exhibition. Now, it must be remembered that the 
excellency of a glass of honey depends not so much upon its 
size and shape, as upon its colour and quality. It should be 
as free from colour as possible, which a glass filled in Juno 
is sme to be, provided it be begun and finished in from four¬ 
teen to twenty-one daj's. Any glass containing brood, or 
even the cells in which brood has been hatched, be it other¬ 
wise ever so handsome or so well filled, cannot be considered 
fine; therefore, when guide-combs are fixed in glasses 
(which is always very desirable), it is necessary that they 
should be of the finest quality and of the purest whiteness ; 
for although the bees have the power of fixing them to the 
glass, and, in some measure, to alter their form, the colour 
must remain the same. 
Very many stocks of bees have died this spring, leaving a 
considerable quantity of honey in their hives, some even as 
much as fourteen pounds, and without any appearance of 
disease or probable cause for their leaving. 11 has arisen, I 
should imagine, from tire deatli of the queen, and that at a 
time when there has been neither eggs nor larva; hi the hive. 
In cases of such desertion, 1 have always recommended to 
have the mouth of the hive carefully stopped, and a swarm 
hived into it at the earliest opportunity; that is, if the combs 
* This useful little volume is only priced 4s.; we quoted a wrong price 
lately.—E d. C. G. 
