THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, November 30, 1858. 
135 
mind of the simple, but elegant and graceful, Mary Queen 
of Scots. 
I do not write invidiously, because, at the Palace, I did not 
get a prize. The twelve flowers I showed were the very same for 
which, at Stoke Newington, I was awarded a fourth-class prize; 
but not being touched up again,—replugged and retubed,—of 
course, amongst their newly-dressed neighbours, they cut but a ' 
so-soish figure. 
At the South London (Camberwell) Society I obtained two 
first-class prizes for twelve large and six Anemone flowers, all 
not dressed, but just as cut from the plants. 
I am told that, try as I may, I shall never write down the , 
“ dressing ” practice. Notts verrons. The system is dishonest, 
excepting amongst exhibitors themselves. The dressed flowers 
are not nearly so elegant as undressed ones. And I tell the 
public that, in purchasing Chrysanthemums, if they expect to 
produce flowers equal to those they see at shows,—excepting by 
tedious artificial means, they will be disappointed ; and whoever 
sells plants with such a guarantee imposes upon the purchaser. 
Do away with the wooden tubing and plugging ; throw away 
the steel and ivory tweezers ; show flowers with a collar of fine 
foliage, placed merely in tin tubes of water ; exhibitions will then 
be more pleasing, and certainly much more reputable. It is said 
that the public would not come and look at undressed flowers : 
it is all fudge, and only asserted by those who know that their 
prizes depend upon their skilful manipulation. 
At an exhibition next year,—say, a public place like St. James’s 
Hall,—let me suggest the following :—That there be a stage for 
“dressed,” and another for “undressed” flowers; the former 
subject to the process of petal-removing, eye extracting (or, more 
politely, eye-easing), tweezer petal-adjusting and curling, wooden 
tubing, tightening, fixing, &c.; the latter simply cut from the 
plants with the foliage attached, and placed only in tin vessels of 
water, for keeping them fresh. I would wager that the undressed 
flowers would proudly and justly adopt the motto, veni, vidi, vioi! 
and that the public, would certainly approve it.— Will Worth, 
Amateur Florist. 
N.B.—In praising Mr. Salter’s flowers, you will understand, 
that I am perfectly unknow'n to him. I merely write for honest 
flower shows. 
BEES SECRETING WAX — ARTIFICIAL 
COMBS. 
Will Mr. Wighton excuse my asking him if he is acquainted 
with Huber’s experiments, which appear to me perfectly de¬ 
monstrative of the fact, that wax is secreted from the saccharine 
part of honey ? Not having the work at hand, I am compelled 
to quote from memory ; but, if I mistake not, they were to the 
following effect:— 
1st. He confined a swarm for twenty-four hours immediately 
after it had issued, and found at the end of that time six combs 
already begun, without the bees having had the opportunity of 
adding anything to the supply of honey brought by them from 
the parent hive,—thereby proving that supply to have been con¬ 
siderable. 
2nd. Having removed these combs, and keeping the bees still 
confined, he supplied them with honey, and found the combs 
reproduced. 
3rd. The same experiment being repeated more than once— 
with the substitution of syrup of different kinds of sugar-a 
similar result followed in each ease, with this difference, that bees I 
fed on sugar produced wax sooner, and in greater quantity, than j 
those fed on honey. 
If the results of these experiments be correctly stated—and I 
have never seen them controverted—I cannot conceive it at all 
probable that bees collect wax from plants in any other shape 
than that of honey. 
My awn misfortune, detailed in “ Bee-Keeping in Devon. 
No. IT.,” as well as the instance related in No. Y. of the same 
series, in which a swarm was drowned in its own sweets in the 
evemng of the day on which it issued, are, to my mind, suffi¬ 
ciently conclusive as to the quantity of honey carried off by bees 
when they abandon their hives, either by swarming, or under 
other circumstances. 
I would also submit to Mr. Wighton, that Hunter does not 
stand alone in not being aware that bees eject wax from their 
mouths; his ignorance, in this respect, being participated in, as 
far as I can ascertain, by Huber, and every other apiarian ob¬ 
server. I may, therefore, be excused for doubting a fact which 
has been so long overlooked, and is so opposed to all received 
ideas upon the subject. Huber states, that each little lamina, or 
plate, of wax is carried by one of the hind feet of the bcc from its 
abdomen to its mouth, where it is ground into pieces by the 
mandibles, and, being pressed together into a compact mass, 
issues from the mouth in the form of a very narrow ribbon. May 
not this explain what I cannot but fancy must be Mr. Wighton’s 
error, in imagining that bees eject wax from their mouths ? 
The proposition for trying waxen plates as a substitute for arti¬ 
ficial comb is one upon which volumes might be written on both 
sides, but, as it is also one in which a grain of experiment will 
outweigh a pound of theory, I shall content myself with re¬ 
peating, that “ it appears to me there is sufficient probability of 
success to make it worth trying.” To which I may add, that, 
although I shall by no means be surprised by its turning out a 
perfect failure, it is still my intention to try the experiment next 
spring, when the result will at once be communicated to the 
readers of TnE Cottage Gardener, by—A Devonshire Bee- 
Keeper. 
SELECT FRUITS ADAPTED TO THE VARIOUS 
LOCALITIES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
('Continued from page 120.) 
LISTS OE SELECT APPLES, 
ADAPTED TO VARIOUS LATITUDES OF GREAT BRITAIN. 
I. SOUTHERN DISTRICTS OE ENGLAND, 
AND NOT EXTENDING FURTHER NORTH THAN THE RIVER TRENT. 
1. Summer Apples. 
Dessert. 
Sack and Sugar 
Borovitsky 
Devonshire Quarrenden 
Summer Golden Pippin 
Early Harvest 
Kitchen. 
Early Julien 
Carlisle Codlin 
Irish Peach 
Duchess of Oldenburgh 
J oanneting 
Keswick C'odliu 
Kerry Pippin 
Manks Codlin 
Margaret 
Springrove Codlin 
2. Autumn Apples. 
Dessert. 
Adams’ Pearmain 
White Ingestrie 
American Mother Apple 
Kitchen. 
Borsdorffer 
Bedfordshire Foundling 
Blenheim Pippin 
Cellini 
Claygate Pearmain 
Coe’s Golden Drop 
Cox’s Pomona 
Emperor Alexander 
Cornish Aromatic 
Flower of Kent 
Court of Wick 
Forge 
Cox’s Orange Pippin 
Gloria Mundi 
Downton Pippin 
Golden Noble 
Early Nonpareil 
Feam’s Pippin 
Franklin’s Golden Pippin 
Greenup’s Pippin 
Harvey Apple 
Hawthomden 
Golden Pippin 
Hoary Morning 
Golden Reinette 
Kentish Fill Basket 
Golden Winter Pearmain 
Lemon Pippin 
Lucombe’s Pine 
Mere de Menage 
Margil 
Nelson Codlin 
Melon Apple 
Nonesuch 
Nanny 
Tower of Glammis 
Pine Apple Russet 
Wadhurst Pippin 
Ribston Pippin 
Winter Quoining 
Sykehouse Russet 
Wormsley Pippin 
Red Ingestrie 
Reinette Van Mons 
Yorkshire Greening 
3. Winter Apples. 
Dessert. 
Court-pendu Plat 
Ashmead’s Kernel 
Downton Nonpareil 
Barcelona Pearmain 
Dredge’s Fame 
Boston Russet 
Dutch Mignonne 
Braddick’s Nonpareil 
Golden Harvey 
Claygate Pearmain 
Golden Russet 
Cockle Pippin 
Hughes’ Golden Pippin 
Cornish Gilliflower 
Hubbard’s Pearmain 
