THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 10, 1857. 
sake of one of our most distant planetary cousins, Jupiter, 
we went, and placed with care upon its quarter-deck our 
precious load. All things upon examination proving satis¬ 
factory we took a glimpse at what was going on around us. 
Nothing gratified me so much as the arrival on board the 
said Jupiter of half a dozen men, hearing between them 
three barrow-loads of bees. From the neighbourhood ot 
Botlnvell they had come, and for Arran’s Isle were bound, 
a distance of full 100 miles. The description they gave ot 
the abundance of heather there and the success ot former 
years almost tempted me to cast in my lot with theirs, but 
time, &c., forbade. Off go the ropes, round go the wheels, 
at the appointed time to a minute; through the long lines 
of shipping on either side we move along. As we emerge 
into the clear water-way our speed increases, and we bee 
men cluster together round our barrows, and open a gossip 
about bees, — experiments and their results described— 
opinions and the reasons for them given—statements, er¬ 
roneous, dubious, and correct, of both ancient and modern 
bee masters discussed—the whole flavoured and spiced with 
anecdote and joke, served pleasantly to occupy our time, and 
keep far from us weariness and the like. 
In the very midst and thickest of our talk a savoury smell 
of salmon steaks glides in upon our sense of scent, rousing 
our dormant appetite, acting thereon as whet the first; a 
peep through the cabin window down upon the breakfast 
board is whet the second; a brace of cold fowls, with tongue 
to match, carried past us beneath our eyes is whet the third, 
and irresistible. So down to the lower regions straight we 
dived, and then, 0 shade of Erisichthon! hadst thou been 
there how thou wouldst have blessed the goddess who gave 
thee up to hunger! for here before thy longing eyes, in 
spotless damask, there is a feast spread out of fish, and 
flesh, and fowl, hot rolls or muffins, buttered toast and dry, 
rich cream, fresh butter, the ancient Mocha, and the youth¬ 
ful hyson too—a feast the like of which not all the great 
of Thessaly in thy old time ever saw or dreamt of, and this 
on board a small Clyde steamer, and the charge just eighteen 
pence. 
Shortly after nine o’clock we arrived at Greenock, and 
having effected a safe landing, and been instructed which 
road to walk to reach the heather soonest, w T e trudged along, 
nor rested till we had left people and houses far behind us. 
We now exchange the level ground and good roads for the 
mountain sides and rugged footpaths, where every particle 
of surface soil is washed away, leaving the face of the world 
old rocks exposed all riven and rutted by the hand of time 
and the tears of winter. The heather reached, our first 
application for permission to plant our bees was refused, for 
reasons not very complimentary to the vivid perception some 
of the Greenockians have of the exact difference between 
meuni and tuum. Our second fared no better, but for a 
reason more absurd, and perhaps less true. They would 
have nothing to do with them, as they robbed the heather of 
its juice, making the cows’ milk not worth a buttoii for 
making butter of. This is the wisdom of the nineteenth 
century found up near the clouds behind Greenock. We 
lost no time in attempting to disabuse their minds of this 
foolish notion, but pushed on through the heather; and 
such an expanse of it, before, behind, and around us for 
miles ! Whichever way we look nothing is seen but heather 
bursting into bloom, covering with a purple carpet the whole 
visible land, filling the air with its honeyed perfume, tan¬ 
talising our caged-up captives with its mellifluous fragrance, 
so that they fairly roar for liberty. Would we could give it 
them; but there is no sign or token by which we might 
infer the proximity of a human habitation. On a small 
green spot of diminutive trefoil—an oasis in this wilderness 
of heath—closely cropped and shorn by the black-faced, four- 
footed, woolly denizens of the moor, we set our burden down, 
and held a consultation touching the propriety of advancing 
or retreating; when hark! the welkin rings with the dis¬ 
cordant, but nevertheless welcome crow of a cock of Cochin, 
proclaiming unmistakeably the near neighbourhood of the 
dwelling-place of bipeds, both men and fowls. The summit 
of an eminence being reached, our eyes are gladdened with 
the near view of a shining, whitewashed, slate-roofed cottage, 
the very type and symbol of cleanliness and peace. 
Permission being readily given by the “gentleman,” the 
counterpart of many now in Havelock’s brave band, we 
speedily fix our hives, carefully thatch them with straw 
brought with us, undo the pi'ison doors, and out the cap¬ 
tives fly. In four minutes the first bee is seen to enter, 
bearing pollen; then another and another, faster and faster, 
until the fifteenth minute after being opened every en¬ 
trance of every hive is crowded with burdened bees. Be¬ 
tween August J2tli, when I left them, and October 5th, when 
I brought them home, I visited them twice, and deprived 
three of them on my second visit. The result of their 
sojourn in the moors, comprising, of course, these depriva¬ 
tions, is given below. The hives consisted of two collateral 
and two storied, reduced prior to removal by depriving them 
of supers, side boxes, and side bars to as nearly the same 
weight as possible, with the double object of testing the two 
systems where food was plentiful, and of avoiding the para¬ 
dox of carrying honey to the heather. 
The collateral hives are those described by me in The 
Cottage Gardener, Yol. XVII., page 382. The tare of 
boxes, boards, &c., being deducted, the net weights are as 
follow:— 
Aug. 12th. 
No. 1. Collateral, 201bs. 
No. 2. „ 23 
No. 3. Storied 21 
No. 4. „ 24 
Oct. 5th. 
481bs, 
Gain, 281bs 
53 
„ 30 
49 
„ 28 
50 
„ 26 
The gain was thus distributed :— 
No. 1. Top side box.121bs. 
Bottom ditto. 8 
Stock . 8 
28 
No. 2. Top side box. .. .. 13lbs. 
Bottom ditto.10 
Stock . 7 
30 
No. 3. Super .lolbs. 
Stock . 13 
28 
No. 4. Super .181bs. 
Stock . 8 
26 
In showing these results I do not claim for my bees any 
credit for having wrought wonders, for several bee-keepers 
with whom I am acquainted have reaped a richer harvest; 
but I do say that the result is very satisfactory, and, when 
brought into juxtaposition with that sweeping assertion of Mr. 
Tegetmeier’s regarding “any system of collateral working” 
(page 413, Yol. XVIII.), I am led irresistibly to the conclu¬ 
sion that he is greatly mistaken, and that the term “ unsatis¬ 
factory,” as applied to collateral hives, ought to be for ever 
blotted out of our vocabulary.—D. G. M‘Lellan. 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
4 
JASMINE WITH NAKED STEMS. 
“I have a Jasmine against my house, the common sweet 
white, J. officinale, which, having been many years, planted, 
has now attained a considerable height, but the stems have 
become naked for six or eight feet from the ground. Will 
it answer to cut down these old rough stems wholly or in 
part, in order to make them throw out young shoots, and 
consequently flowers ? ”— Verax. 
[Not “in part.” Cut them all down to very near the 
ground, and in two years the plant will be just as high as it 
is now. If you cut one half of these strong shoots the 
other half of them may be so strong as to draw all the sap 
and growth to themselves, or else rob the young growth so 
much as to make it not worth having. Passion-flowers, 
Periplocas, and Honeysuckles are in the same category.] 
