32 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 10, 1860. 
invariably picked out by my poultry with the greatest avidity. I 
find it has increased the health of the fowls in every instance. I 
may also safely say it conduces to an increase in eggs, as also to 
an improvement in them colour.— Spangled Hamburgh. 
PRESERVING EGGS-EGG-EATING HENS. 
If Mr. Smith were to rub his eggs over with the white of an 
egg before putting them up on his shelves, I think he would find 
that less of their contents would be lost by evaporation, than at 
present seems to be the case. Eggs that I have varnished have 
kept good for ten months. The white of an egg is very useful 
also in preserving the colour of birds’ eggs, though it gives them 
a rather unnatural glossiness. 
Instead of hens intentionally breaking their eggs for the pur¬ 
pose of eating them, is it not more reasonable to suppose that 
they are broken unintentionally, owing to the thinness of the 
shell ? I have lost many eggs this year, and now believe that that 
is the true cause, though 1 at first thought the hens were to 
blame.—G. Montague. 
LIGURIAN QUEENS—WHEATEN FLOUR— 
BEE-BOXES AND DYSENTERY. 
Without for one moment imagining that your excellent cor¬ 
respondent, “ B. & W.,” is at all likely to make a mistake in 
bee matters, I am willing to point out certain rocks a-head in the 
course he proposes steering with his Ligurian queens, which 
might otherwise make fatal shipwreck of the hopes of those who 
should attempt to follow him without possessing his intimate 
acquaintance with the intricacies of the channel. 
All attempts at multiplying Ligurian stocks, either artificially 
or by natural swarming during the year in which they are received, 
are to be deprecated as resulting almost to a certainty in hybri¬ 
dising the young queens. It is not very likely that any Ligurian 
drones will be bred until another season, and in this case hybri¬ 
disation is unavoidable, if any increase be attempted. But even 
supposing some Ligurian drones to be produced, there would 
still probably remain a majority of black drones bred by the 
deposed monarch; and these with other common drones from 
their own or neighbouring apiaries, would preponderate in so 
overwhelming a manner as to produce the same result with 
almost equal certainty. 
Although it appears that some German apiarians have coun¬ 
tenanced the idea that the Ligurian bee is rather improved than 
deteriorated by a cross with the common species, that notion is 
most earnestly combatted by M. Hermann, who avouches that no 
bees are at all equal to tire pure-bred Ligurians. This opinion 
has my most hearty concurrence, and I hope that all bee-keepers 
who may obtain these interesting strangers will neglect no pre¬ 
cautions which may tend to preserve the purity of the breed. If 
hybridisation be once permitted, it will be very difficult to retrace 
the false step, and the result will probably be, that the Italian 
species will quickly become merged in the ordinary bee. 
The season is, as “ B. & W.,” remarks, unprecedentedly late, 
and the weather has been most unfavourable for pollen gathering. 
Since my successful experiment of the 22nd of March (which I 
recorded at the time), I have endeavoured to make good the 
deficiency of pollen by supplying all my stocks with wheaten 
flour, which I find consumed with great rapidity. The plan I 
have adopted, is to place about a teaspoonful on one end of a 
slip of card four inches long by three-quarters broad, and thrust 
it into the mouth of the hive. The quantity made use of varies 
much in different stocks ; the most populous appropriating the 
largest portion. Very frequently the whole teaspoonful will be ] 
carried off in two or three hours. 
A word about wooden bee-hives and dysentery. All my stocks j 
are in wooden boxes, and I have not used straw hives in any 
form, but I never in my life had dysentery in a hive, and know 
nothing practically regarding it—a degree of ignorance which is 
certainly not regretted by—A Devonshire Bee-keeper. 
SIX MONTHS’ KEEP OE THREE HIVES AT 
THREE DIFEERENT EXPOSURES. 
Erom experiments tried for several seasons, I am satisfied that 
bee-writers over-estimate the winter’s; consumption of these 
insects during the dormant season, the quantity being inconsider¬ 
able compared to the drain that must take place as the breeding 
season advances, which, however, cannot be ascertained from the 
increasing weight of the brood. Take, for instance, three of my 
hives, weighed 1st March, which had neither feeding nor bees 
added :— 
September. March. Deficiency. 
No. lbs. ozs. lbs. ozs. lbs. ozs. 
1. —Stewarton. 43 13 ... 33 0 ... 10 13 N. aspect. 
2. —Improved collateral 20 7 ... 10 10 ... 9 13 S. „ 
3. —Common straw. 19 6 ... 11 7 ... 7 15 E. „ 
These figures are the nett weights—bees and combs. 
No. 1.—A doubled swarm of last season (2 14-16 lbs. of 7th and 
5 11-16 lbs., of 30th June), in three boxes placed in a little 
half-staircase window, 22 feet from the ground, facing the 
north, yielded a two-guinea box. 
No. 2.—A 4f lb. swarm of 8th June, 1858, placed south-bend of 
garden wall, yielded 20 lbs. comb in a super that season, two 
swarms last, never fed. 
No. 3.—A 3 2-16 lbs. swarm of 2nd July last, placed east-bend 
of garden wall, yielded nothing. 
Although these results fall considerably short of the customary 
allowance of 18 lbs. or 20 lbs. supposed to be necessary to keep a 
swarm through the winter, still I would by no means advocate the 
retention of weak hives, as they are generally troublesome and un¬ 
profitable. The well-known rule that the higher an animal is in 
condition the easier is it kept, applies equally to bees. Eor example: 
End of July, last year, being desirous to people a couple of hives 
of an improved construction, I beat out the inmates of two straw 
hives, twenty-four days after swarming, appropriating their store 
free from brood. The latter part of the summer being wet and 
unfavourable, my new hives made little headway. At the beginning 
of September, I, therefore, added the bees from two top swarms to 
each, supplying both with 14 lbs. sugar and honey converted into 
syrup. On weighing these hives 1st March, was astonished to 
find them down to the miserable zero of 5 3-16 lbs. and 3 13-16 lbs. 
respectively, including bees.—A Renfrewshire Bee-keeper. 
P.S.—Many thanks to your able correspondents, “ A Devon¬ 
shire” and “ A Bedfordshire Bee-keeper,” for their prompt 
advice anent the “ Attack of the Blues.” The cure of the former 
I had in a measure anticipated by netting over the entrance and 
securing a number of the marauders in the hair-snares set thereon, 
the assailed at once issued forth and put a period to their 
struggles. The effectual remedy of the latter (Nux vomica ) shall 
have a fair trial next season, should I again be visited with these 
pests, the genial influences of the spring enticing them to the 
woods for the present. 
OUR LETTER BOX. 
Rearing Chickens (/. J/.).—If we tell you what we have done with 
our chickens you will, perhaps, see why you have failed. We have never 
been so uniformly successful. All our chickens that came out in January, 
February, and March were put with the hens under rips, on the hard 
gravel-paths of a kitchen garden. The rips are well covered every night 
with old matting, sacking, or carpet. They were fed during the long 
nights after dark, and before daylight. They have bruised wheat, boiled 
egg chopped fine, bread-crumbs, bread and milk, and paste made with 
oatmeal. Their drink, morning and evening, is beer; they have milk in 
the middle of the day. They spread themselves all over the garden, 
principally among the strawberries; they grow fast, and they do no mis¬ 
chief. The gravel-path, where the rip is placed, is covered two inches 
deep with fine sand and dust. The losses between the time of hatching 
and now, when some are nine weeks old, have been, from all causes, four 
per cent. We never had stronger chickens, and, spite of the long and 
severe winter, there is not a weak one among all these that were never in 
their lives under a roof. 
Antwerp Carriers. — If “Capercaillie” will communicate with 
“ F. C. If., Post-office, Ililsea, Rants.,’’ he may, perhaps, hear of some 
Antwerp Carriers. 
Wild Canaries {J. Pell ).—I have not seen any birds from Teneriffe or 
the Canaries direct. Those from Madeira, of which a description is in 
hand, resemble a common grey Canary. The birds from St. Helena I 
regard as a different species, and identical with the Serin Finch of the 
south of Europe. If “J. P.” can give any information respecting the 
Canaries of the Canary Islands, I shall esteem it a favour.—B. P. Brent. 
LONDON MARKETS. —April 9. 
POULTRY. 
Good poultry is still scarce, and prices are consequently on the advance. 
For a time there is an evident lack of first-class goods. 
Each— s. d. s. 
Large Fowls. G 0 to 7 
Smaller Fowls. 4 G „ 5 
Chickens . 4 0 „ 4 
Geese. 0 0 ,, 0 
Goslings . 7 0 „ 7 
Ducks . 0 0 „ 0 
Ducklings. 4 6 5 
Each— s. d. s. d. 
Turkeys. 0 0 to 0 0 
Guinea Fowls . 2 6 ,, 3 0 
Pigeons. 0 8 ,, 0 9 
Hares. 0 0 ,, 0 0 
Leverets. 2 0 „ 3 0 
Babbits . 1 4 ,, 1 5 
Wild ditto. 0 8 „ 0 9 
