96 THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, November 11, 1856. 
not encounter many Mr. Wilsons, who will pooh, pooh it, 
and never even try it. Mr. Wilson has such an abhorrence 
of the drug, that I feel quite warranted in inferring that he 
has never used it. No, he knows another plan by which 
bees may be transferred without the use of any such abomi¬ 
nable stuffs, and so do I; but I cannot allow him to award 
the palm to that until he has qualified himself to be a 
judge, as I have done, by operating in both; and, on the 
other hand, I will not determine whether or not the bees 
have more or less affinity or relish for that reversing and 
rotating operation than for chloroform. If I mistake not, 
the plan preferred by Mr. Wilson will be found described 
in Dr. Bevan’s book. 
Now for Mr. Taylor’s hive. When speaking of it, labour¬ 
ing to be concise, I have rendered myself obscure and open 
to the charge of mismanagement. So be it; but my mis¬ 
management did not proceed from ignorance of the alterna¬ 
tive mentioned by Mr. Wilson. When one works a box 
or hive with a view of testing its efficiency, unless he follows 
strictly the directions of its inventor, he does not test it 
fairly. The giving of additional room below forms no part 
of Mr. Taylor’s plan. He says, “ Should the bees have 
pretty well filled the first super, another may be intro¬ 
duced between this and the stock.” This is what I did after 
a keen mental struggle between what I knew was right and 
Mr. Taylor’s rule, and the result is known. Had I allowed 
the other rule to win, and given the room below, it would 
have been no trial of Mr. Taylor’s hive. I was grievously 
annoyed with the result; yet I would not utterly condemn 
that kind of hive without some further trials. I frankly 
admit that management is important, most important; but 
none, even as perfect as it is at Stewarton, can make amends 
for unpropitious seasons, and none know this better than 
they do, else the experience of this year must go for no¬ 
thing. A gentleman in Glasgow who deals largely in honey 
told me that whereas, in the month of August last year, he 
had in his stock fifty boxes of Stewarton honey, this year, 
the same month, he had only seven. In consequence of 
the south of England rejoicing in better seasons, and, I 
may add, superior pasturage, Mr. Wilson thinks the col¬ 
lateral system may suit well there. 
If this theory is correct, then the storifying plan ought 
to be the best for Ratherglen, and the collateral for Stew¬ 
arton ; for I can make no comparison between the two dis¬ 
tricts unless I were to say the last is as Eden before the fall, 
the former as Eden after it; and yet I have found the col¬ 
lateral (not this year only, but every year) has always 
yielded me the most honey. I have wrought hives on both 
plans long : has Mr. Wilson ever 7 
If I had said that I had succeeded in getting my glasses 
filled always without brood, I should have said a great deal 
more than my experience warrants; but if I am spared to 
see another season, I shall be able to promulgate a wrinkle 
there anent, and to tell Mr. Wilson how to accomplish it 
without the aid of miracles. I have been now three years 
experimenting on this very point, and I think I have found 
the secret; next year will decide. 
One word more, and then I have done. Mr. Wilson enters 
a verdict of guilty against himself of making free with me. 
I am quite willing to allow its justice—his sentence shall be 
light. Ample amends he will make for all the blows he 
thinks he dealt me if he will, out of compassion for the 
ignorance of all writers upon the bee, past, present, and, 
mayhap, to come, allow some of his pent-up knowledge to 
escape by means of the “ safety-valve” now open, to the end 
that wisdom may not die with him, and be entombed within 
the charnel-house of all the Wilsons.— D. G. M‘Lellan. 
CHEAP GAS-HEATING APPARATUS. 
I will now proceed to give you, in accordance with your 
desire, some remarks as to my mode of heating a small 
greenhouse. I must precede them, however, by stating, 
that in all my experiments I have aimed at cheapness and 
portability. 
The greatest advantages the mode offers are the facts 
that it requires no expensive brick fixing, that it can easily 
be moved and adapted to another greenhouse in case of re¬ 
moval ; it is clean, can be set in action in a moment, and 
is easily regulated even by a lady, and, where there is gas, 
may be kept for any time at a comparatively small cost, 
when the great expense and trouble of the old mode is 
considered. There is no risk with gas of losing your plants 
in consequence of the fires going out, and no time lost 
in attending to them, so that I consider the balance of ex¬ 
pense in favour of gas. This, then, is my plan annexed. 
Fig. 1. Sectional view. 
Fig. 2. Inner tube, kept in centre by stays. 
Eig. 1 is a sectional view of an apparatus in a cellar, 
from which the pipes are led to the greenhouse. A is the 
boiler, composed of two galvanised iron bowls, which may 
be bought for Is. Cd. each, and which are soldered together 
an inch apart by means of a circular ring of, No. 11, zinc. 
B is a flow-pipe, with 9, a small tube (an inch clear) run¬ 
ning through a good part of its length, and communicating 
as a chimney with the hot-air chamber F. C, return-pipe, 
galvanised iron, on No. 11, zinc, three inches in diameter, 
and connected to boiler E. Ring-burner to be bought for 
Is. 3d. H, circular tube of sheet iron, same size as outer 
edge of boiler, and made to take away. There must be a 
small swing-door for lighting gas. I are holes at bottom 
for admission of air. J, stay from one pipe to another. 
K, union joints. These union joints can be in any part of 
the return-pipe, but can only be beyond the chimney on the 
flow-pipe. As a matter of course, the farther this inner 
tube goes through the flow'-pipe, the greater afterwards is 
the facility for heating rapidly. In my apparatus it goes 
through it for ten feet, and is then taken out of the house ; 
but were I to have on e fixed permanently, I would have it 
continued all through the liow, and finally coiled round in a 
retort or cistern at the highest point. For some time after 
heating there can be no heat felt issuing from the tube G, 
proving that the cold water is abstracting all the heat. 
When the water becomes heated, then the warm air escapes ; 
but, by lowering the burner, and a little attention at first to 
test its capacity, I think the loss of heat can be brought 
very low. 
