47 
THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, April 17, I860. 
able; fowls always sell very low, and in the spring there is no 
sale at all. This is all true, but it admits of explanation ; they 
sell low because they are not worth more; there is no sale in 
the spring because, as a rule, none but old birds have ever been 
offered. In most country markets poultry is considered out of 
season from March till Juno, or July; yet in London it is in 
season all the year round. The first thing asked for by those 
who visit town in the season is a London fowl. It is always 
good, and, although expensive, it is thought to be worth the 
money. The same people would buy a good fowl in the country 
if they could, but it has always been impossible. Those who 
undertake to supply the market must not be discouraged if there 
is but a poor sale and little or no demand at first. There is not 
only prejudice to overcome, but fact. Customers are to be made 
of those very people who have bought and bought again, only to 
be more and more convinced there are no young fowls to be had 
in the spring. They will be as long in changing their opinion as 
they were in forming it. 
BEES AND THOSE WHO HAVE WRITTEN 
ABOUT THEM. 
{Continued from, page 15.) 
In our 5th volume will be found extracts from the autobio¬ 
graphy of Thomas Tusseb, the next writer, in chronological 
order in whose publications we find any mention of bees, and his 
notice of them is very brief. His little pamphlet entitled “ A 
hundreth good poyntes of husbandrie,” was “ Imprinted at Lon¬ 
don in Flete strete, within Temple barre, at the sygne of the 
hande and starre, by Richard Tottel, the third day of february. 
An. 1557,” and it contains these rhymes:— 
“ Saint Mihel byd bees, to be brent out of strife : 
saint John byd take honey, with fauor of life. 
For one sely cottage, set south good and warme; 
take body and goodes, and twise yerely a swarme. 
“ At Christmas take hede, if their hiues be to light: 
take honey and water, together wel dight. 
That mixed with strawes, in a dish in their hiues : 
they drownc not, they fight not, thou sauest their lyues.” 
According to these brief rules, which need some interpretation, 
such hives as were not intended to be saved as stocks, were burnt at 
Michaelmas ; but those which were only to' be deprived of a part 
of their store and their lives spared, were to have it taken about 
St» John’s day, June 24th. This depriving, we learn from the 
next writer we shall quote, was then termed “ gelding the hiue.” 
By “ sely ’ we consider Tusser meant “ goodly,” from the Anglo- 
Saxon, sel, good, and that from one good hive, well sheltered and 
facing the south, not only two swarms but honey might be 
obtained annually. 
Some years subsequently—viz., in 1573, Tusser published his 
<! Five hundredth points of good husbandry, united to as many 
of good huswifery.” They do not include the above rhymes, 
! but under “May’s husbandry,” he says :— 
“ Take heed to thy bees, that are ready to swarm, 
The loss thereof now, is .a crown’s-worth of harm ; 
Let skilful be ready, and diligence seen, 
Lest being too careless, thou losest thy been.” 
On which we need only observe, that been in Anglo-Saxon is 
the plural of lee, and in Tusser’s time was used, just as housen is 
still used for houses in many parts of Essex and Suffolk. 
Next, in our catalogue of English writers upon bees, appears 
■" Thomas Hill, Londoner,” and in that appendage to his 
name, is comprised nearly all that we know of his whereabouts. 
He appears to have been one of those miserable men who in that 
age lived by writing upon any subject the booksellers required. 
At all events, books bearing his name are extant upon such varied 
themes as astronomy, arithmetic, dreams, physiognomy, garden¬ 
ing, divinity, and bees. If he was the Dr. Hill mentioned by 
Wood in his “Athenro Oxoniensis,” he eventually became a 
pervert to the religion of Rome, and died on the continent early 
| in the seventeenth century. 
His pamphlet is entitled, “A proGtable instruction of the 
j perfect ordering of bees, with tlie maruellous nature, property, 
[ and gouernement of them : and the necessary vses, both of their 
honnie and waxe, seruing diuerslie, as well in inward as outward 
causes: gathered out of the*best writers.” “Imprinted at 
London by Edward Aide, 1593.” 
The writers “ gathered out ” of are the classics from Aristotle 
1 downwards, as well as Galen, Hieronimus Cardanus, Guiihelinus 
; do Conchis,. and others of similar acquirements. Of these gather¬ 
ings we shall take no notice, but there is one or two passages 
referring to tho bee-keeping at the time Hill lived, which aro 
worthy of quotation, being, ns he remarks, “ a thing verie rare, 
and seldome seene in the English tongue.” 
The knowledge of the natural history of the bee was no more 
than that possessed by Pliny,—the sex of the monarch of the hive 
was still misunderstood, being spoken of only as “the king.” 
Of hiving a swarm, Hill thus speaks :— 
“ When the bees are now in a tumult in the aire, by throwing 
fine earth on high oner the Bees or ringing a bason or kettle, 
they be with the shrill sound astonied, that they may the sooner 
settle downe neer the keper, which if the same happen to be on 
the branch of a tree, or on a graft or yong set, then with a sharp 
sawe, gently saw that off and lay it on tho ground, and speedily 
set a hiue on the same prepared for that purpose: for by that 
meanes (without dout) will the whole swarme fly vp to the top 
& head of the hiue. Yet it often hapneth, that they doe not 
wholy cleave on a heap to ye branch of a tree, but to the stocke 
or body of the tree, which to be cut, must be by great force, and 
so not able to be recouercd by this means. In such a case tho 
swarme must be quickly swept off, either with the hand, or with 
a Goose wing, that they may so fall togitlier into the hiue. If 
the swarme happen to be clustered togither on the top of a tree, 
so high that they cannot be climed unto, to take them downe 
then, after the shaking of them into the hiue (turned vp), either 
with a pole, or high forko, the hiue must speedely be turned downe 
to the earth.” 
Of hives, he says :— 
“ I suppose our forme of hives heere in England, are not 
altogether to be disallowed, although they be in like daunger to 
bee easily burned, as the other hiues aboue taught, in that they 
be made with straw. But to bee briefe, for a great swarme you 
ought to haue in a readines a great hiue, and for a small swarme 
a little hiue. And the hiue also ought to bee a foot and a halfe, 
or two foot high, and in breadth above two foot and a halfe, 
or somewhat larger: Having besides two very small and narrow 
holes, somewhat asunder, and so litle ought the mouths to 
be, that neither beetle, butterfly, great moth, bumblebees, Euet, 
nor mouse may enter in, to spoile the hony combes. Some sup¬ 
pose, or rather affirme of experience, that the bees are delighted 
with this closeness, in that they more ioy to do their works and 
busines in the darke, than otherwise.” 
The mode of depriving, or, as Hill expresses it, “ When and 
how the hives ought to be gelded,” is copied from the old 
Roman writers, Palladius and Yarro.—G. 
(To he continued.) 
BEE-HOUSES AND BEE-BOXES. 
“An Old Bee-master” has quite mistaken my communi¬ 
cation to you. Let him read again. Many may have fallen into 
the same pit as I have done ; therefore, I beg to caution all who 
keep bees in boxes. 
Ho says, “ it may be pardonable in one who evidently has 
little experience, to ask for information.” I always thought it 
was praiseworthy in the ignorant, “ to ask for information.” 
The house I built last spring (February, 1859) was 10 feet 
6 inches long, 4 feet 4 inches high at the two ends, and 
6 feet 8 inches high in the middle. Facing S.W. I W. Was 
covered up in the front with half-inch deal boards. There were 
two sets of bars going the whole length. The front is quite 
free from trees, bushes, &c. At the back (about 4 feet) is tho 
garden fence, an open railing, and at the back of this is a high 
hedge, with a tall oak growing in the bank. The locality, I think, 
was first-rate. When the severe weather came I covered the 
back of the bee-house with bast mats, three thick. The roof was 
thatched first with straw, then with heath. On the boards in 
front was nailed a very thin covering of heath, so that the sun’s 
rays should have little power on the wood. An opening 2\ inches 
was left in front for the bees to pass in and out. Was this a 
good house ? When building it, my lad, whose father has kept 
many bees, said, “I don’t think they ’ll do any good in it, Sir.” 
“ Never mind, George, let us try,” I replied. One of Mr. 
Waterers’s foremen, a very intelligent, clean, tidy fellow, happened 
to pass one day when we were at work. “ Don’t make a hive- 
house, Sir, bees do better in the open.” “ I mean to try, Clark, 
and see.” “ Well, Sir, / have tried and always found they are 
better in the open air.” On I went; my house was finished ; 
closed in front, open at tho bach. In March, a gentleman who 
