76 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER, AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 1, 1859. 
The inhabitants of several condemned hives having been offered 
to me, I drove a couple on the 8th and 9th of September, 
deprived them of their queens, and left them on their original 
stands till the Ligurian queens should arrive. 
Oh the 10th of September I once more received a “ double 
cassette,” and this time there was no doubt that both compart¬ 
ments contained “living bees.” 
I had determined upon varying my course of proceeding; and 
being desirous of placing the Italian sovereigns at the head of 
two really good colonies, I expelled the inhabitants of two of my 
strongest stocks, Nos. I. and III., installed the strangers in the 
abandoned hives, and proceeded to search for the two English 
queens. In the case of No. I. the capture was effected with com¬ 
parative ease; but with No. III. it was far different. There was 
fully thrice the number of bees as compared with any stock I 
ever drove; and the difficulty of discovering their sovereign was, 
of course, infinitely increased. In vain did I turn them over and 
over again—in vain did I repeatedly knock them out of the 
empty box in which they had taken refuge. Hour after hour 
passed, and still my task was unfulfilled ; and it was not till I 
had almost given it up in despair that a casual glance revealed 
the object of my search. 
Allowing these unfortunates once more to take refuge in the 
empty box from which I had so repeatedly and so unceremoniously 
ejected them, I placed the two boxes of queenless bees on their 
original stands, and impatiently waited the approach of evening, 
when I intended restoring to them their habitations, and at the 
same time presenting them to their future sovereigns. No sooner 
had night closed in than a smart blow dislodged for the last time 
the rightful inhabitants of No. III.; and their own hive being 
forthwith placed over them, they were in this manner introduced 
to their future monarch. The same course of proceeding was 
attempted with No. I.; but in this case, although the blow was 
unquestionably vigorous enough to dislodge any cluster of reason¬ 
able bees, not one fell on the cloth, nor did the slightest sound 
give token that they were aware of the assault. This tenacity 
and obstinate silence were, however, speedily accounted for. 
Cautiously raising and carefully inspecting the interior of the 
box, I had the mortification of discovering that it was completely 
empty!—A Devonshire Bee-keeper. 
P.S.—The apiarian readers of The Cottage Gardener have, 
doubtless, been much interested by the articles of “B. & W.” 
on the subject of the novel manner in which he stocked his new 
apiary. As that excellent apiarian docs me the honour of asking 
my opinion on the facts he has recorded, I can do no less than 
state that I consider he has done excellently well with the means 
at his disposal. With regard to the question of artificial versus 
natural swarming, my own practice during the past season, in 
the course of which I had but two swarms, and these artificial 
ones, affords the most conclusive proof that I am fully alive to 
the advantages of the former, although, from the amount of 
apiarian skill which it requires, it is not likely very generally to 
supersede the natural mode of increase. 
LIGURIAN BEES. 
As we have now' fairly established in England, in at least two 
apiaries (that at Muswell Hill, and that of “A Devonshire 
Bee-keeper,” to whose enterprise, by the way, we are all in¬ 
debted for this interesting addition to our domestic stock),—as, 
I say, we have in this country several colonies of Ligurian bees, 
I venture to hope and suggest that every possible way of in¬ 
creasing their number may be adopted next year, with a view to 
the character and qualities of these bees receiving at the hands 
of our best apiarians the thorough trial which they deserve, 
previous to their general dispersion throughout the country, if 
approved of. 
As having had much experience in multiplying swarms by arti¬ 
ficial means, I may be allowed to suggest the following plan, as 
one deserving of adoption and the best I know. I must presume 
that these Ligurian queens are in bar-hives, and that they prove 
themselves fairly prolific mothers. 
Let, then, a number of similar bar-hives be constructed, and 
into each of these, from time to time, during the course of the 
summer, let there be carefully transferred from the Ligurian 
stock a bar with comb attached, containing eggs and young bees 
in every stage of progress. 
I think it would be well that every full-grown bee should be 
previously swept off this comb back into the old hive, so as to 
prevent all danger of fighting between them and the bees of the 
other stocks to which the comb is to be given. Then, in the 
middle of a warm and sunny day, when the bees are chiefly 
abroad, let this comb, carefully fixed in an empty bar-hive, be put 
in the place of any strong stock of common bees that may be 
available for the purpose. This stock may be removed to some 
distance; but it would be well first so to disturb it as to cause 
a good many more of the bees to leave it than might happen to 
be foraging in the fields. I think, moreover, that I would stop 
up its entrance till the evening. The other bees would soon 
take possession of the empty bar-hive, and in three weeks’ time 
replace their missing English queen with a young artificially- 
reared Ligurian queen, whose progeny would, in due course of 
time, become the sole possessors of the hive. The English stocks 
chosen for this purpose must be in the same, or in a very closely- 
adjoining apiary, otherwise the absence of Ligurian droves at 
the proper season would prove fatal to the success of this plan of 
increase. 
One Ligurian stock losing one bar only, from time to time, might 
in this manner become the parent of a dozen stocks at least in the 
same season ; and the earliest of the young swarms (say those 
formed in May) might also, in a warm spring, be made productive 
of two or three swarms in the same manner, without becoming 
too much weakened. Eor my own part, I should not scruple to 
take two bars every wee/c out of the Ligurian stock during the 
months of May, June, and July, and to work these swarms, 
artificially formed, in the manner above detailed, during at 
least a whole month, from the middle of June to the middle of 
July. 
If either the Secretary of the Apiarian Society, or “ xY 
Devonshire Bee-keeper,” would work this plan well, or any 
other equally promising, I doubt not that they would find ready 
j purchasers of Ligurian stocks next summer and autumn at a fair 
price. 
I think there ought to be one good Ligurian stock left pretty 
much to itself, so as to encourage the propagation of drones. 
Still, even this stock might be made to yield a few bars without 
in the least hindering the development of drones ; but no bars 
should be taken out till a fair number have been seen abroad. 
Perhaps the best plan would be to make a swarm out of this 
hive in the same artificial manner, so soon as many drones are 
hatched. For drones which join swarms are generally (perhaps 
always) allowed to remain alive till late in the season, whereas 
the earliest-hatched drones are frequently destroyed in cold 
springs in their own hives.—B. & W. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Paralysed Legs {. T . M .).— This usually arises from the bursting of a 
blood vessel on the brain, caused by over-feeding, violent frights, and the 
like causes of excessive circulatory action. Pepper pills were the worst 
medicine you could give a bird thus’affected. Keep it perfectly quiet, give 
soft food in very moderate quantities, and consisting chiefly of boiled 
potatoes and a little barleymeai, with as much green food as the bird will 
eat. Such attacks arc usually past all remedy. The book you refer to is 
amusing but not practical. The most full is The Poultry Book.” 
Hamburgh Cocks entirely Spangled (F. C. II .).—The cocks you men¬ 
tion would not be desirable as exhibition birds. Such were formerly 
called Siberian and Circassian. They are to be produced by a cross between 
the Pencilled and the Spangled; or they may appear by one of those 
vagaries which we can only explain by throwing back some cross which 
has long lain dormant. The bird for exhibition should have a white tail 
with a black spangle on the tip of it; a well-spangled breast; a laced 
and barred wing; a perfectly white deaf ear, not larger than a sixpence ; 
and a well-spiked and piked comb, well and firmly seated on the head, and 
the pike inclining upwards. Jerusalem Artichokes do not seed in England. 
Roup (A Liverpool Subscriber). —"Worms are occasionally found in the 
intestines of fowls, and have no connection with roup. This disease is an 
inflammation of the mucous membranes of the mouth and throat of the 
fowl, and if it proceeds to an advanced stage partakes of the nature of 
glanders in the horse. Bathing the head frequently in tepid water, doses 
of castor oil, soft food, dry warm lodging, and small doses of sulphate of 
copper dissolved in the soft food, are the course of treatment to be adopted, 
and have been frequently detailed in our pages. 
Pigeons Strayinq (IP. IF.).— The composition said to attach Pigeons 
to their home is thus spoken of in Mr. Brent’s “Pigeon Book : “ The 
salt-cat is composed of about equal quantities of a clean, unctuous loam, 
such as brickmakers use; a coarse, gritty sand, or fine gravel, in which 
the grains are about the size of pins’ heads; and old mortar : to this is 
added a small quantity of baysalt. Some persons, to make it more attrac¬ 
tive, add aromatic seeds — such as cumin, anise, coriander, and carraway. 
The whole should bo mixed up with chamber-ley, into the consistency of 
mortar, and placed in a crock, the sides of which are perforated with 
many holes large enough to admit the Pigeons’ heads, and covered with a 
lid to keep off the weather. The Pigeons will take great delight in it. It 
is said that this preparation attaches the Pigeons strongly to their abode, 
and also that it prevents their picking the mortar from "the house-roof, on 
which account Pigeons are objected to.” 
Ulcerated Foot in Rabbits (J. V .).—Try the remedy recommended 
as a cure for “foot-rot” in ferrets, at page 13 of our present volume. 
