XliE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, October 26,1858. 
Earl of Shaftesbury. Purple rose, with large white eye. Fine. 
Mist Trotter. Bright dark scarlet, with yellow eye. 
Cynthia. Crimson, with white eye. Very large. 
Beauty of Cctslil/e. Rich violet-rose. First-rate. 
Eblouissante. Fine orange-scarlet. 
Madame Matras. Rink, with crimson eye ; very arge truss. 
Strong grower. 
Nosegay. Fine rich salmon. Dwarf habit. 
Prince of Oudo. Dark purple, with white centre. Fine. 
Sir J. Oiitram. Purple, with line white eye. 
Heine des Amazons. French white, with deep rose centre. 
Madame Jardin. Lavender-rose, with line white eye. Strong 
grower. 
.Perfume de Madoline. Splashy white. Very pretty. Dwarf 
habit. 
Mademoiselle de Valiere. French white, mottled and striped 
with lavender. 
La Stella. A rambling grower. See Admiral Dundas. 
I have grown all the Verbenas Mr. Scott names in bis list, 
with the exception of seven or eight varieties.—S. W. Wills, 
11 oodlands. 
BEE-KEEPING IN DEVON.—No. III. 
THE BALANCE OF rOWltlt—FUMIGATION— A FAILURE — CHLORO¬ 
FORM— MOVING — ATTACK AND DEFENCE — DEFEATS—RE¬ 
NEWED ATTACK AND DETERMINED RESISTANCE—VICTORY ! 
My three hives remaining still on the heath, and being amply 
provided against the coming winter, as stated in my last com¬ 
munication under this head, i determined upon restoring the 
“ balance of power,” in respect of population, by uniting to 
No. 1 and No. 3 (both of them shallow eight-bar boxes) the 
inhabitants of a couple of stocks belonging to a neighbouring 
cottager, which would otherwise have suiibred capital punishment 
by brimstone. 
Having obtained a reprieve for these unfortunates, I set to 
work to rummage out my old fumigating apparatus, purposing to 
commute their sentence to transportation. But here one of those 
annoying failures, which few apiarians have not at some time 
experienced, interfered to mar my r intentions. After what ap¬ 
peared a most successful fumigation, not one-half the bees in 
either instance recovered ; and 1 had the mortification of finding 
that fumigation with fungus might be quite us fatal in its effects 
as my friend S. B. Fox’s experiments with chloroform; and that 
I had condemned the majority to a certain, and, probably, not 
less painful death than that of suffocation by brimstone. Added 
to this was an opinion which I have long entertained, that fumi¬ 
gation is permanently injurious, even to such bees as appear at 
the time perfectly to recover from it, and is, therefore, of little 
value hi adding numbers to a weak stock. 
Often have 1 perused the instructions for “driving,” given in 
nearly every work on bees, and deeply have 1 pondered on Dr. 
Bevan’s axiom, that “not to be capable of performing it will 
hereafter be regarded as an opprobrium apiarium." It will readily 
bo believed that, these repeated readings anti ponderings have 
resulted in divers breaches of the peace in the ease ot sundry 
unfortunate stocks which I have at various times turned bottom 
upwards, and most perseveringly assaulted, with the view of in¬ 
ducing their inhabitants to take refuge in the empty hives, which, 
iu each case, so invitingly surmounted them. It is needless to 
recapitulate the number of instances in w hich the defence bus 
proved stronger than the attack, and in which the besieger, after 
a tremendous and well-sustained five, both of artillery and 
musketry, in the shape of rappings and tappings, has been com¬ 
pelled to retire in confusion, with aching arms und elbows, fol¬ 
lowed by a triumphant roar from the victorious garrison, who, 
w hen released from their confinement, have made so vigorous a 
sortie as effectually to raise the siege. 
Stiimdated by the desire of being able to transfer a stock of 
bees by some means less injurious than either fungus or chloro¬ 
form, and w-arned at the same time by the recollection of repeated 
failures, the readers of The Cottage Gardener may imagine 
me, at half-past nine in the morning, of the 28th of August last, 
seated on an empty bee-box, under the welcome shade of an Apple 
tree, rapping away on the outside of a populous stock of bees, 
which had not swarmed during the summer, and, therefo*p, 
condemned to the brimstone pit. The full hive was, of course, 
inverted, and surmounted by an empty one of the same size, the 
junction being secured by a cloth tied round it, and the whole 
steadily fixed in a pail. The continued rapping soon produced 
a furious roar, and it appeared evident, that if they could get at 
me I had little mercy to expect. However, as I was out of their 
: reach, this did not trouble me much, and, in reply, I rapped 
away more vigorously Ilian ever, occasionally varying the per- 
I forman.ee and awakening a distant echo by a fantasia on the 
! pail, which, being hollow, resounded with a clatter that might 
| have been heard nearly a mile off. This I was induced to do 
from reading some author who recommends an iron crock as a 
support for the inverted hive, and the iron being rapped instead 
of the hive itself, the noise produced by its reverberation will, it 
is said, soon cause the bees to ascend. Pausing occasionally to 
take breath and rest my elbows, I applied my ear to the united 
hives; but still the resolute roar in the lower, and almost total 
silence in the upper one, proclaimed their adoption of the principle 
of “ no surrender.” Soon I found it necessary to wipe off the per¬ 
spiration, which stood in large drops on my forehead, or slowly 
trickled down my face, and, as the sun rose higher and higher, 
and at last poured down its burning rays almost perpendicularly 
on my head through the straggling branches and too scanty 
foliage of my sheltering Apple tree, I began to fancy that there 
might be other and more agreeable modes of spending a hot day 
in August, than performing a “ devil’s tattoo ” on a refractory 
hive of bees, who still persisted in proclaiming, in unmista*keable 
accents, that they “ wouldn’t go.” At length I bethought me of 
Wildman’s advice, to raise the empty hive a little from the full 
one as soon ns a part bad ascended, and forthwith proceeded to 
act upon it. Having removed the cloth, 1 slightly lilted the 
empty hive, and, of course, released (lie bees; but few, however, 
took to whig,—the majority were evidently too full of honey, or 
too much frightened by the continued disturbance, to contemplate 
an attack. Still, scarcely any of the bees had taken refuge in the 
empty hive, t he great majority remaining in then - original domi¬ 
cile, though in a very disturbed state,—rushing about the combs, 
but steadily declining to accept the proffered asylum. Another 
half-hour elapsed, and, Wildman’s plan having failed, matters 
began to look serious. Was 1 still to labour under the oppro¬ 
brium apiarium ! and were the morning’s exertions to terminate 
only by adding another to my already too numei'ous defeats ? 
Forbid it, shades of Reaumur and Gedde, and all the host of 
bygone apiarians, who, whatever their shortcomings in other 
respects, were at least masters of the noble art and mystery of 
“ driving.” 
Finding myself “ driven ” almost to my wits’ end, I at length 
separated the two hives, and, placing them side by tide in the 
bee-house,—the empty hive occupying the spot from which the 
full one had been taken,—I attentively watched the behaviour 
of the stragglers, in the faint hope of discovering that the queen 
had been amongst the select few whom my two hours’ discord 
bad induced to take refuge in the empty hive. Vain hope! 
After watching a considerable time I found myself unable to de¬ 
termine the point, and at length, somewhat refreshed with this 
pause in my labours, but in no very enviable state of mind, I cap¬ 
sized the full hive once more, and desperately resumed my tattoo. 
The hard work is certainly beginning to tell upon my arms, 
and, in a much shorter time than before, I am glad to desist, 
deluding myself with the nssiu - anee that it is necessary to listen 
more frequently for the ascent, which cannot now much longer 
be delayed. Though I whisper this to myself, I do not really 
believe a word of it, and, in a sort of devil-me-caro fashion, once 
more listen to the uproar. Do my ears deceive me ? No: they are 
really on the move! und, after a few minutes more rapping, I 
have the satisfaction of removing the full hive, with only,a few 
stragglers remaining in it,—having succeeded in my object after 
nearly three hours’ exertion.—A Devonshire Bee-keeper. 
TOMATOES RIPENING ON THE OPEN 
GROUND. 
During the last two or three years, there have been several 
articles in The Cottage Gardener, relative to the Tomato 
ripening its fruit on an open border ; and, in some Bases, a con¬ 
siderable amount of credit was awarded to the grower for his 
success in that way. It is not my jmrpose to detract from 
the merit so awarded; but I may simply say, that ripening 
Tomatoes on the open ground is a much easier affair than is 
generally supposed; and the plant is much more accommodating 
than many others, which suffer less from frost; for, be it ob¬ 
served, this plant is one of the first to suffer from the icy king. 
