THE COTTAGE GARDENER AND COUNTRY GENTLEMAN, May 29, I860. 
113 
Probably some of “Mrs. Dorking’s” fowls are worse than 
tlie rest. Let her kill them, or at least separate them from the 
others; try the remedies yon recommend, and kill all those 
wliich are not cured at the next moulting; rearing chickens from 
other stock this summer.—(E. 
DO BRAHMAS BREED TRUE? 
In January last I procured a fine pair of dark pea-combed 
Brahmas with the view of breeding from them. The hen began 
to lay on the 25th of Eebruary. I set all her eggs in successive 
hatchings of seven each, under Cochin pullets. Most of the eggs 
were addled, and the few chickens that I have from this pair of 
fowls differ widely in size, comb, and appearance. One chicken 
is vulture-hocked, with feathers almost touching the ground; 
another is, apparently, clean-legged ; and all of them are smaller 
than Cochins of the same age. 
If my experience is not exceptional, surely dark Brahmas are 
not a distinct variety, or good specimens are rare.— Amateur. 
[We have our correspondent’s name, and that of the dealer 
from whom he purchased the birds.— Eds. C. G.] 
HENS WITH DISORDERED EGG-ORGANS. 
What are the exact symptoms of an egg-bound hen ? The 
writer had a remarkably fine bird with a large protuberance under 
her tail. On consulting an individual who had a great reputation 
in the locality as one who was “ poultry wise,” she was pro¬ 
nounced to be suffering from an incurable tumour, instant 
execution being the only alternative. On her being opened a 
mas 3 of shelless eggs was disclosed, from forty to fifty, in different 
stages of development. The hen had ready access to lime, looked 
well, and did not carry her tail in a drooping manner. The 
writer has a Cochin-China hen with similar symptoms, which he 
has liberally dosed with castor oil, but hitherto without any good 
effect. —A Subscriber. 
[The hen you killed was not what is termed “ egg-bound 
for this term is confined to cases where the egg is perfect in every 
part, but the egg-passage is so constricted that the egg cannot 
pass out. The hen in question, we have little doubt, had inflam¬ 
mation of the ovaries. In this case, as well as in cases where the 
perfect egg cannot pass, the symptoms are usually the same—a 
swelling of the hen’s abdomen ; going on to a nest frequently, 
and remaining there long without laying; and when the inflam¬ 
mation has continued for some time, the excrements are usually 
unnaturally glutinous, and clog the feathers around the anus. 
All such ovarian derangements usually arise from feeding too 
much and too nutritiously. Low diet is the remedy. Keep the 
hen for at least a week upon boiled mashed potatoes and boiled 
rice; and during the time give her each second day a pill con¬ 
taining one grain of calomel, and one-twelfth of a grain of tartar 
emetic. Let her also have as much green food and exercise as 
she chooses. A good grass run is the best for this purpose.] 
INTERCOURSE BETWEEN COMMON AND 
LIGURIAN BEES. 
“ A Devonshire Bee-keeper ” states (page 91) that he caught 
a common drone entering one of his hives of the pure Ligurian 
stock. Will he have the kindness to state at what distance in 
a straight line there are hives of the common bee ? I believe 
it is not known how far the drones commonly wander from their 
own hive. Andrew Knight believed, as stated in the “ Philo¬ 
sophical Transactions,” that the queen was seldom fertilised by 
her own blood-relations, the drones of her own hive. Does 
“ a Devonshire Bee-keeper,” who seems to be so conversant 
with the habits of bees, believe in this doctrine of Andrew 
Knight ?—C. D. 
[I have this day (May 24th) seen pure Ligurian drones for 
the first time in one of my stocks, but believe none have yet 
taken flight. The distinction between the two species does not 
appear nearly so strongly marked as in the workers; but this 
may be owing in some degree to their not being properly 
matured. The apparent difference being so slight, has, how¬ 
ever, modified the opinion expressed by me at page 94, and I 
am now inclined to believe the “ unwelcome stranger ” to have 
been a small hybrid drone which had come to maturity in my 
pure Ligurian stock, instead of being, as I at first supposed, 
a straggler from some other colony. The presence of a small 
hybrid drone is easily accounted for by the fact that I had 
previously strengthened the Ligurians by adding to them a 
couple of hybrid brood-combs, and it is more than probable that 
in so doing I had overlooked one or two small-sized hybrid 
drone grubs. 
My idea is that females among bees are very generally fer¬ 
tilised by tlie offspring of the same mother, because they appear 
the most likely to meet during the nuptial excursion. The 
degree of success which attends my efforts to breed pure Ligu¬ 
rians may, however, throw some light on this subject. 
Some years ago I witnessed a circumstance which leads to 
the inference that drones do, in point of fact, extend their flight 
to a greater distance than is generally imagined. A strong 
stock in full work was, at the latter end of M ay, removed during 
the night to a new situation quite a mile distant from its old 
locality. During the next and following day some hundreds of 
workers returned to the accustomed spot to meet a melancholy 
end in the unavailing attempt to find their habitation. The 
weather happening to be cloudy, not a single drone appeared 
until the third or iourth day, by which time not a worker was to 
be seen ; but abright sun then happening to shine out heralded 
the approach of some scores of drones, which, like their pre¬ 
decessors of the (not in this case) “ gentler sex ” also perished 
miserably. 
When the season is a little more advanced, specimens of 
Ligurian drones and workers will be very much at the service of 
“ 0. D.” if he will favour me with his address. -A Devonshire 
Bee-keeper.] 
>< __ 
FRATERNISATION AMONG BEES—FORMING 
LIGURIAN STOCKS. 
I have frequently before remarked how readily bees of adjoin¬ 
ing hives will fraternise under peculiar circumstances, where they 
would be the bitterest foes in ordinary cases. An instance 
occurred three days ago in my apiary. To understand the case, 
it is necessary your readers should know that the two hives in 
question stand side by side on the lower shelf of my bee-house, at 
a distance (entrance from entrance) of not more than twenty 
inches. The left-hand stock (as seen in the house), appealed 
weak* in bees, and had begun to show signs of invasion from 
that pest the Wax Moth; not, as far as I could see, amongst the 
combs, but on the floor of the hive, among the broken fragments 
of opened honey-cells. On discovering these I instantly removed 
the board, and examined the condition of the hive, thinking to 
destroy and plunder it. I was agreeably surprised, however, to 
see the combs perfectly clean and free from Moth, and an evident 
and considerable increase in tlie population since I last examined 
the hive two months ago, and there appeared a large quantity of 
brood. I therefore contented myself with cutting out some nice 
pieces of empty comb for guide-combs to other hives, and re¬ 
moving the infested board, substituting a clean one for it. It 
was then replaced in the bee-house. An hour after I proceeded 
to give a nadir, or under-box, to the adjoining stock on the right 
hand ; this stock being extremely populous and overcrowded, in 
spite of a small super already given to it. Some little time was 
taken up with this job, during which the bees of this hive, which 
returned home from the fields, were, as is usual in such cases, in 
great perplexity at finding an empty box in place of their full 
hive. Then commenced the fraternisation to wliich I have alluded. 
For the distressed insects (many of them heavily laden with 
pollen), catching sound of the peculiar hum of pleasure which 
ever and anon proceeded from the adjoining hive, as some straggler 
after the late disturbance of that hive found its way home again, 
began to creep in the direction of it; and soon there was a grand 
rush of bees in rank and file in the direction of the weak stock. 
This continued for more than two hours, even long after I had 
replaced their own parent hive on the top of the nadir. I thought 
they would afterwards return to their own liivo. Not so, how¬ 
ever. They have permanently joined the weak hive, which is now 
so strong that the bees were working comb in it both yesterday 
and to-day (May 17), and play in and out almost as actively as 
some of my other hives. 
I have been so much occupied of late, that I could not remark 
hitherto upon “A Devonshire Bee-keeper’s” caution to the 
inexperienced in reference to a mode of increasing Ligurian 
* “The Devonshire Bee-keeper,” who paid me a pleasant visit last 
autumn, will remember warning me to expect the dissolution of this stock 
in the spring, and his advice to me to plunder it, 
