44 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER. 
April 
intolerable. A louder hum than usual is heard, and 
the queen -quits the hive, numbers leaving with her. 
In a little time the swarm clusters upon some branch 
of a tree or shrub, the bees banging on each other 
by the claws of their feet. Their numbers vary from 
12,000, which is a moderate swarm, to 40,000. The 
old queen leaves plenty of eggs in the cells, by which 
the population is renewed. 
The queen will sometimes fall upon the ground, 
not being able to fly through some defect in her 
wings; then the swarm returns home again: the 
next time they arise they have another sovereign. 
A swarm will sometimes stay in the hive a fortnight 
before they rise again, waiting for a leader. 
Tliorley says, “ the poor unhappy princess I have 
picked up in the grass, but never without some atten¬ 
dants, whom nothing but violence could separate 
from her.” When bees have swarmed, before they 
have formed five or six square inches of comb, we 
find honey, eggs, and bee bread.— Plul. Trans. 1792. 
A hive containing a few combs, and placed near 
an apiary, is almost certain to receive a swarm, which 
will sometimes fly into it at once without clustering, 
having previously for many days examined it by 
scouts. A hive should be placed at once with a new 
swarm upon the bench, and not delayed till evening. 
Stray swarms are sometimes seen on their flight; 
in such cases, it may be a long time before a hive 
can be procured. When settled, Bagster recommends 
a person to throw his handkerchief over them, and 
tie the corners so as to enclose the bees, then to cut 
off that part of the bough to which they hang, with 
as little disturbance as possible, and they may be 
carried in this manner several miles; or you may 
hive them in your hat. Combs that are without 
honey should not be destroyed, but carefully pre¬ 
served for the following year. Besides, it is upon 
record that bees placed in a hive having ready-made 
combs, gathered more than two pounds every day; 
and that another swarm equally good, and placed in 
an empty hive, did not increase in w r eiglit more than 
one and a half-pound a day. 
When a side hive is taken away, another should 
be placed on the opposite side of the hive of bees, 
and this may be left or taken away as circumstances 
happen as to fair or rainy weather. 
In ventilating the hives, care should be taken to 
keep open the holes in the zinc plates, as the bees 
will stop them up with v r ax or propolis. 
There is another plan, besides that which I have 
described, to take the honey without destroying the 
bees: which is, to stupify them with burnt fungus, 
ground ivy, or pounded laurel leaves. Take away 
the queen, then put the bees into an empty hive 
upside down; sprinkle them with sugared beer, and 
then lift a full hive over them. The two sets of bees 
will unite, and form one colony. This plan was, I 
believe, invented by Tliorley long ago; but the honey 
is no better than upon the old plan of destruction, 
when the larvie, bee bread, and refuse of the breed¬ 
ing cells, are all crushed together in forcing out the 
honey from the combs. Nutt’s plan is much more 
cleanly, as the bees never clean out the breeding 
cells, and in this way come to an end after a few 
years. Another advantage in Nutt’s plan is the pre¬ 
venting swarming, and the affording security against 
loss of swarms. 
Changing the Middle Hive. —When a hive is 
old, many of the cells are full of refuse, and become 
useless. In order to remedy this evil, let tlie bees 
work in a side hive without ventilation, and when it 
is well filled reduce the temperature of the middle 
hive when the breeding season is over, or in early 
spring before the queen lays her eggs. The bees 
will then take away every thing they want out of the 
old hive, and when they have done this, the dirty 
wax may be removed, and the hive placed in its old 
situation. 
To Increase a Stock of Bees. —Let one set of 
bees fill two hives with wax and honey, without ven¬ 
tilating either; then, at the time of the year when 
there are drones, take away one of the hives to 
another part of your garden, and confine the bees to 
the hive twenty-four hours. The success of this plan 
depends upon there being larvae in the hive not 
three days old. 
(To be continued.) 
CULTURE OE CACTACE^ IN ROOMS. 
The success with which I have, during the last 
few years, grown a few specimens of cactaceae as 
ornaments for the parlour window, induces me to 
believe that a statement of my method may be ac¬ 
ceptable to some of the readers of The Cottage 
Gardener. My parlour window looks to the south, 
and the manner in which the plants are there ar¬ 
ranged is shewn in this engraving. 
Above the window is a rod, from which Cereus 
mallisoni, G. flag elliform is (or Whipthong cactus), 
with others of a pendant habit, are suspended by 
copper wire. Lower down, and parallel with the 
horizontal sash bars, are three shelves, the two up 
permost three inches wide, and that at the bottom 
of the window of width sufficient to take the larger 
specimens, such as Cereus serpent in us, and C. spe- 
ciosissimus, which attain to; several feet in height. 
On the two uppermost shelves, close to the glass, in 
small pots, are Mammillaria stellata, Echino-cactus 
Eyresii, E.multiplex, EpipTiyllum truncation, Opuntia, 
Mesembryanthemum decumbens, and Stapelia bufonis. 
This is the station for my plants from the end of 
September either till May or the beginning of June. 
From November to March little or no water should 
be given. From June to September, or early in 
