Ui THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN’S COMPANION, January G, 1857. 
Now, liow to hive them. Impossible ! the bees streamed 
everywhere, drowning in hundreds in their own honey, or 
groaned their last under the piles of half-melted honey¬ 
comb. 
Jenkins was frantic. His veil and gloves were no longer 
useful. The bees got to his wrists, his neck, his forehead; 
then to his eyes, his nose, his lips. He roared with agony, 
and in the midst of his agony felt the keener sting of remorse 
as a malefactor. He rushed from the place, blistered and 
exhausted, and at an hour before midnight hurried me from 
my home to the sceue of the disaster. What I saw was a 
worse spectacle than he had left it. I could have pitched 
him headlong into the midst of the bees, as a sacrifice to 
their insulted race; but I muttered “ fool! ” audibly, and 
masticated my rage in silence. 
What was to be done ? Plainly they must be hived, and 
I thought that, as all this had been done to get thorn into 
the fancy hive, into tire fancy hive they should go, even if I 
laboured till the morrow morning. I found a large piece of 
comb ; it was so warm and soft that I could scarcely handle 
it. In a few moments I got this attached to the inside of the 
new hive. I then attached another piece, and then began to 
search for the queen. I grew so excited that I handled the bees 
without even moderate caution, and got more stings in that 
one hour than I ever had in my life, or hope ever to have again. 
I carefully unpacked the piled-up mass of broken combs that 
covered the board, and presently came to a dense mass of 
the miserable victims, the whole of them saturated with 
honey, and nearly suffocated with the weight under which 
they had been buried. I took the whole mass, and placed 
it on the floor-board of the new hive, then gathered up as 
■ many of the clustered heaps of bees as I could find, placed 
: them all together on the floor-board, put the hive into posi¬ 
tion, and sent the blistered Jenkins to his bed. 
| The rest may be briefly told. Jenkins slept not a wink 
—the bees roared all night; they swarmed about the house, 
took possession of door-posts, water-spouts—were every- 
! where, and the noise was heard by neighbours fifty yards 
| off. Before daybreak I hurried back, carried the hive to the 
place it was to occupy, put all the broken combs into a super, 
and put the super near, not to some comb, but to some bees, 
i for every scrap was covered with their crawling forms, all 
groaning miserably. That same day I gathered up several 
hundreds a few at a time, and restored them to the hive, and 
in this way saved an immense number of lives, though the 
amount of bees and brood sacrificed was truly awful. In a 
week the colony got to work, the patient creatures once more 
laid foundations, the super was removed, and once more 
Jenkins watched his favourites, though with many tremors 
and a bitter feeling of remorse. 
| On the 21st of June what should happen? They swarmed! 
: that is to say, they left the hive in the fashion of a swarm, 
j leaving some fifty or sixty workers only behind, and settled 
I on a bush. I was on my way to chapel, and once more the 
; alarmed Jenkins clutched at me, and dragged me to the 
! scene. To procure the old, crazy hive, and drive them into 
| it, was the work of a few minutes, and very soon after the 
j despised hut displaced the palace, and the bees seemed to 
take possession as if they knew it to be the house from 
which they had been so mercilessly expelled. 
“ Be it ever so humble, there’s no place like home.” 
On examining the new hive which the bees had left, I 
found that all the comb they had made was a miserable scrap 
three inches long and one inch wide, and about this a few 
disconsolate bees were clustered. These left a few at a 
time, and, I suppose, joined their comrades in the old 
hive. 
The tragedy ends by Jenkins declaring bees a bore, and 
threatening to suffocate them with brimstone, and throw the 
hives away. I pitied that swarm of bees, and would have 
carried them in my hosom rather than they should have 
suffered another pang; so I boldly bought them at the price 
originally given, reduced and shattered as they were. I 
brought them home—another risk—the distance being very 
trifling, and they went on well, and in September last they 
weighed more than you would imagine. 
Since then barley-sugar has been their friend. They are 
now doing well, and I hope, with a continuance of barley- 
sugar, to have them as forward in spring as many stocks 
that were neither suffocated, smashed, robbed, poisoned, 
trod into paste, nor three times hived the previous season.— 
Shirley Hibberd, Tottenham. 
TO CORRESPONDENTS. 
Cuttings of Verbenas, &c. (Betsey). —The Waltonian Case is not 
suited for forcing plants in order to get cuttings from them, and it is not 
suited for such as know nothing about cuttings; but as you “ have some 
little knowledge of cuttings” a Wardian Case is the handiest thing in 
the world for you. Mrs. Captain Whilty, who was said to be the best 
gardener about Surbiton two years since, and who knew Mr. Walton and 
his case, and Mr. West, of Surbiton, who makes them, has just ordered 
a Waltonian to be sent after her to Dublin, Captain Whitty having 
been promoted to “Castle Yard;” and what one lady can do surely 
another can try to excel. After a pot of cuttings is rooted in a Wardian 
Case the tops of them will make good cuttings to go on with.—Dusting 
flowers of sulphur thoroughly among the feathers of the Bullfinch would 
probably have destroyed the lice. 
Various (A. i)/.).— Your Humea elegans must be kept in the green¬ 
house; it will bloom next year, and then die. Seed sown in a hotbed in 
April or May, plants pricked off and potted several times, saved over the • 
winter, will bloom in 1858. It is a graceful plant, and looks well either j 
in-doors or out. We used to grow our Melons singly in six or seven- 
inch pots, and, when strong, turn them out into pots about fourteen or 
sixteen inches in diameter." We prefer plunging partly, so as to secure a 
little bottom-heat; but we have had them fine, when standing on kerbs, 
without plunging. They do well enough trained over the bed in the 
usual way; but, when convenient, we prefer training on a trellis from 
fifteen to eighteen inches from the glass. 
Window Gardening (A Constant Subscriber). —We had the pleasure 
of receiving both your letters, and, with several more, they formed the 
ground-work of two articles on window gardening; one or part of both 
you will see hefore the answer to this makes its appearance. We 
never purposely neglect a letter, though at times we must give a 
short answer, and in other cases must wait a little. The inquiries 
are so numerous that, without grouping them sometimes, we never 
should get through them. Now, we congratulate you on your having 
a small greenhouse likewise, and hope it is near your dwelling. Mr. 
Fish thinks that for a house ten feet long a lean-to would be best 
for you, if you can place it against a wall already there. If not, a little 
span-roofed one would be best, and a path somewhat sunk in the 
middle. If you tell us your exact circumstances we will do our best to 
advise you. Meanwhile, we feel certain your windows will be more 
easily kept gay. If your house is a lean-to, and as wide as long, you 
will manage two Vines nicely. For such a size we question if a little 
flue would not be best for heating. At first we would advise confining 
yourself to Camellias, lipacrises, Geraniums, Cinerarias, Calceolarias, 
and Fuchsias. 
Various ( Cleric us). —Our columns being too few for what is wanted 
just now, we must give a short reply to the many matters your letter con¬ 
tains, as to fully discuss them would require the best part of a number. 
Your span-roofed house, standing north and south, twenty-six feet 
long, by fourteen feet wide, is not properly a span-house farther than 
the roof is concerned, as the cast side has five feet upright glass resting 
on a low brick wall, while the west side and the north end are brick. 
We think this is so far against you in growing Peaches, Nectarines, and 
Strawberries in pots, that just in proportion to the height of the west 
wall, you lose just so much of the afternoon sun. We presume that the 
entrance on the east side is in the middle, and that you have a walk all 
round, and a pit in the centre, and that between that pit and walk there 
is a space before you come to the glass for setting your Peach-trees in 
pots. Of course, as you propose, oak slabs will keep up that pit for a 
time as well as bricks; but if there is much sap wood, as there generally 
is, that time will be short. Certainly they will take less room than 
brick ; but as to their being less liable to injury by frost if it should get 
into the house, we could not help thinking of the fate of the outside 
walls if those of thepitwere thus likely tobemjured. Y r our idea of raising 
the bottom of this pit, so as to have it all hollow beneath, to let the 
warm air under and prevent the cold soil from chilling the roots, can at 
least do no harm, though the labour of watering in summer will not be 
lessened in consequence, and we have not experienced the evils you 
speak of when trees are planted out in Peach-houses. We have had 
trees quite large enough for the centre of such a house in tubs, but we 
see no impropriety in your planting them out, and separating the space I 
for the roots of each into various compartments. We have no faith, | 
however, as to the flavour of Peaches being improved when grown as j 
standards, because it is the more natural plan. If you crowd your trees [ 
in such a house you will find the reverse. Your proposed shelf for 
Strawberries on the west wall, about a foot from the sloping roof, will 
do very well if you do not want them early, and you can give air by some 
means close to the pots. If you wanted them early, a shelf or two along 
the south end would be best, and if they w ere great objects, we would have 
a narrow shelf on the east side, and also on the east roof, as a single 
row of pots would not injure the Peaches at an early stage, and the pots 
would be all gone before you wanted all possible light for flavour. Your 
proposed flue is all right: is it to be beneath the surface, or how situated 
as respects the trees in pots along the east side? Your idea of forming 
a chamber where it enters the house, and having a bed inclosed for 
propagating purposes, is a good one. Wood is the worst thing you could 
use for covering such a chamber, unless you keep it fully eighteen inches 
from the flue, and then the wood should be open, and stones and 
clinkers placed between the planks. We should prefer having extra 
strong tiles on the flue there, packing it all round with clinkers and 
brickbats as hollow as possible, then a layer of washed pebbles or 
gravel, then a little rough, clean gravel, and then sand for setting the 
propagating pots in. Your bringing two drains from the south or 
extreme end to communicate with this chamber to equalise heat is good; 
