272 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL souRNAL. [1 Apnrim, 1902. 
up the robbed hive at once and keep it shut. If it is standing in the sun and 
full of bees, they would probably smother ; therefore air must be given to them. 
One way of doing this is to make an opening and close it with wire gauze, but 
then again, like the prisoners in the Black Hole of Calcutta, they will pack 
densely against it, and so exclude the air. You might put on an upper story 
and cover it with wire cloth, but the robbers inside make such a fuss that they 
call the robbers outside to them, and they keep up a disturbance in the apiary 
all day long. Worse still, the outside robbers make an arrangement with the 
imprisoned ones, by which the latter pass the honey out to them, and thus 
clean out the hive effectually. Now a double wire cloth prevents this sharp 
practice. 
The best plan is to brush away all the bees round the entrance, and keep 
them away till all get out that wish to. You may then close the hive with very 
little danger. If you have got all the robbers out, you may give the others 
their liberty next day. If they will not then defend themselves, shut them up 
for three days. By that time even the robbers will adhere to the stand as if it 
had always been their own. 
Horticulture 
WATERING YOUNG TREES AND SHRUBS. 
Amateur gardeners as a rule do not understand the art of watering in dry 
weather. When they see that the flowers and shrubs are drooping, they attach 
a hose to a stand pipe and thoroughly wet the—surface. They rarely think of 
looking to see how deep the water has penetrated, and would be astonished to 
find that after half-an-hour’s hose play the soil is only wetted to the depth of 
less than a quarter of an inch. Such watering is worse than useless. Far 
better to mulch the soil, and trust to that for the preservation of moisture than 
to form a thin layer of damp soil, which only attracts the roots upwards to it 
that they may be parboiled by the hot morning sun. 
A good way to water shrubs is one which we adopted with perfect success 
in the case of some valuable coffee-trees during a very dry season. We took a 
number of beer bottles, and, with a tap of a pick on the bottom knob, drove the 
bottom neatly out. These bottles were then buried neck downwards close to 
the tree. Every night they were filled with water, which slowly drained away 
beneath the surface—l foot below. The rootlets then sought the needful 
moisture downwards instead of upwards, and the plants grew luxuriantly. The 
surface was never watered, but by capillary attraction it was kept fairly 
moist. 
In India, gardeners bury a porous jar like a water monkey unglazed. 
They are filled as soon as empty, and a plug on the neck serves to keep out 
insects and dirt. If gardeners would try this plan they would saye many a 
plant which would die under the ordinary hose treatment. 
