61 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 27, 1858. 
As soon as you see drones, look out for swarms. When drones 
appear, there ought to be some one always on the watch, or 
you may chance to lose the swarms when they rise : they have 
often a bad habit of straying, and when once they are off, they 
are very seldom found again. Swarms leave the liive some¬ 
time between nine in the morning and four o’clock in the 
afternoon. Everything should be ready , so as to hive them at 
a moment's notice: and they ought to be hived as soon as 
possible after they have settled. 
Of Aktificial Swaems. — Among the disadvantages of 
the Cottage method of Bee-Management are the following :— 
1st. The uncertainty of swarms. 2ndly. The danger of losing 
them when they do come. 3rdly. The waste of time and 
patience in watching for them. It has been computed that a 
vast proportion of swarms are lost to their owners every year, 
while bad weather, at an inopportune moment, prevents a great 
many hives from swarming at all. All these disadvantages, 
however, would be done away with, could we malce the bees 
swarm at a convenient time. Can this be done ? I answer, 
yes ; for it is now always my own practice, so that a natural 
swarm is a rare occurrence in my own apiary. At the same 
time, among the many different ways of making artificial 
swarms (as they are called), I know of none so simple as to be 
recommended for universal adoption. Old Bonner says truly, 
u To make artificial swarms . . . always has been and ever w r ill 
be destructive to bees, if performed by unskilful persons so 
that he adds, “ all new beginners may be almost certain of ruin¬ 
ing some hives in their attempts.” This is true, but he also 
affirms, that “ it is very profitable when performed by skilful 
bee-masters.” And this latter statement I know from experience 
to be as true as the former. Having, therefore, duly cautioned 
the reader, I shall proceed to point out what I have found the 
simplest and surest method of creating swarms. 
To succeed in making artificial swarms, attention must be 
paid to the proper time , as well as to the proper manner , of 
conducting the operation. The following rides for knowing 
the proper time must be carefully observed :— 
1st. The hives must be strong and full of bees. 
2nd. There must be a good number of drones in them. 
3rd. There should also be several young queens coming on, 
and nearly ready to leave their cells. 
4th. There ought to be plenty of young common bees ceiled 
■up in their cells. 
5th. The iveather for performing the operation should be 
cool and fine, without wind. 
6th. The best day to choose, if all other things are favour¬ 
able, is the first day after a period of cool or rainy weather in 
May or June, when the weather changes, for this is the time 
when the bees may be expected to swarm naturally; and it is 
well to follow Nature as closely as possible. 
7th. The best hour of the day is soon after sunrise, when 
the bees are mostly at home and quiet. 
But, it may be asked, how is one to know whether there are 
young queens, and young common bees, coming on and ceiled 
over in the hives ? The only way to find this out, is by 
driving the bees into an empty hive on a cool morning, and 
then examining the interior of the hive. (See page 28.) In 
. driving shake the hive as little as possible, for fear of breaking 
the combs, as they ought to be very heavy with young bees at 
this time. The empty hive with the driven bees in it must be 
put in the place of the old hive, which should be examined 
some distance off. If you see plenty of covered cells in most 
of the combs in the middle and lower part of the hive, this 
shows there are plenty of young common bees ; and if you see 
some small pear-shaped cells hanging down along the edges of 
the combs, and closed in, these are royal cells, containing young 
queens more or less ready to come out. These are the two 
surest and best signs of the fit time being come for making 
artificial swarms. I must mention, that before these cells 
contain young queens, or queens of a proper age, they are 
open and look like empty Acorn-cups ; but when the young 
queens are sufficiently forward , they are elongated and closed 
in so as to resemble Acorns in their cups, or Pears with the 
pointed end downwards. The more of these you see the 
better, but if you see two of them, you may proceed to make 
your swarm without fear. This is simply to let the bees re- ! 
main in the hive, into which you had driven them, taking care 
to let them stand in the place of the old hive; this latter, of 
course, must be moved to some other part of the garden. 
If, however, you do not see any royal cells, or but few of 
the common bees’ cells covered in , you must put the bees back 
again, and set the old hive in its place once more. To return 
the bees is a simple affair. It is enough to turn the empty 
hive bottom upwards for a few minutes, with the old hive over 
it. A tap or two with the hands will make them go up more 
quickly than they did before. Or else you may set the old 
hive in its place first, and put the bees in the empty hive on 
the top of it. They will soon go down through the hole in the 
top of the old hive, which, of course, must be open for the 
purpose. 
In making a swarm in this manner, you must be sure that 
the queen is with the driven bees. You may be sure of this, 
if the bees are pretty quiet, and especially if they congregate 
together at the top of the empty hive. If she is not with them 
(which you may also know by the bees refusing to remain 
quietly in the hive) you must put the old hive in its place 
again, and try to make your swarm some other day. 
There are various other ways of forcing swarms, which I 
find successful enough myself, but as they are difficult opera¬ 
tions, and not so sure as the one I have just given, I pass them 
by without notice here. 
(To be continued .) 
INFORMATION" WORTH NOTICE. 
G. Clements, merchant, Manchester ; T. Lake, Ilulme, 
near Manchester; and M, Thomas, Salford, have favoured 
Mr. Chadwin, and others, with orders, which they declined to 
execute. The orders were written upon invoices with printed 
heads! 
QUERIES AND ANSWERS. 
HYBRIDISING GERANIUMS. 
“ The Doctor, my most worthy friend, is with me at this 
moment to request that I will ask you, for him, a whole host 
of questions ; and after all he ends by saying—‘ If I could only 
have half an horn’s chat with Mr. Baton (Anglice i Beaton) 
I’d get more value out of him than by twenty letters.’ The 
fact of it is, ‘ the Doctor ’ is going cracked about cross-breed¬ 
ing, hybridising, and twenty other queer things, which he 
owns D. Beaton knows more about than any other man on 
this side of the Styx, and he would give anything to have a 
chat with him, and if the Fates spare both himself and D. B., 
till the end of the summer, nothing but a severe fit of the gout 
will prevent him from going over to England, where he has 
not set his foot these twenty years. Well, then, his first 
question is, relative to the size of the glass he intends putting 
hi a small house he is about to erect; it is to be strong sheet- 
glass, laid on the rafters, the house itself being a span-roof, 
forming a right angle at the top. He wants to know what is 
the extreme breadth he can trust between rafters ? Though 
he has not told me so, I imagine his new house is to be devoted 
to hybridising; for the next question is, c I should like to 
know what species Mr. Baton would take in hand among 
Geraniums, supposing he could pick and choose at the Cape 
of Good Hope! ’ ‘ Baton is right,’ says he, ‘ about the florists; 
bad luck to them! (a neighbouring rival doctor is a great 
florist, and prides himself in having 100 different kinds of 
Carnations, and Picotees, which may, perhaps, in a measure 
account for my friend’s aversion to florists in general) they 
have been breeding round and round, and they never will get | 
a peg further, and we must begin afresh if we want to see 
anything new. If I had plenty of time to spare, I’d find out 
myself which would be the kinds to operate on; but I am 
getting old, and I should like to get a hint, were it only to 
save time, and a few blunders.’ Would our friend, D. Beaton, 
help my worthy Celtic Esculapius, by just recommending 
those wild species which would be most likely to yield useful 
results ? At my suggestion, he intends working the native 
Geranium Bobertianum and Molile, with some of the wild 
Cape Pelargoniums ; as also the beautiful B. tricolor ; which, 
pray, tell me where I can get it for him, as I do not see it in 
any catalogue. The Experimental shall have the full benefit 
of any hit my friend makes, should he be successful, and 
nothing shall be given to the world without first undergoing 
