Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News. TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1908. BEE-KEEPING

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVII, Issue 43327, 19 May 1908, Page 2

Te Aroha AND Ohinemuri News.

TUESDAY, MAY 19, 1908. BEE-KEEPING

This above all—to thine own self be true , ' And it must follow as the night the day • Thou canst not then be false to any man Shakespeare.

It is interesting and perhaps not a little surprising to learn that a dominioner is credited with being the proprietor of the largest apiary in the world. This gentleman is Mr W. Lenz of the Wairarapa. He controls the affairs of a community of bees whose housing demands nine hundred hives, and controls them in a manner which shows the most marked administrative ability. He makes his tours of his bee territory in a ten-horse-power motor car, taking his extractor with him. He erects a calico extracting house over the apparatus and by a clever contrivance attaches the motor power to the extractor, thus making his motor a veiy important factor in the extracting plant. Bee culture is one of the most interesting and also one of the most profitable of the agricultural professions. There is every indication that there is a very great future before the followers of this delicate cult.. With a domestic market for about one thousand tons annually, and an unlimited field for export, there is every inducement for the apiarist to put his whole heart into his vocation. Prices for the best clover honey have been known to reach £52 10s per ton, whilst the average price for the best honey is £42 to £4B per ton. Messrs Hutchinson of the Waikato, produced 10 tons of honey last year, that is of the best honey, and are so well satisfied with the prospects of the industry that they intend to increase the number of their colonies to eight hundred this season and one thousand next.

But it is not merely as a profitable industry !for men that we regard the bee-keeping, but also as a suitable and remunerative profession for women. It may be instructive to some to learn that in this respect women are following an historic precedent. Over a hundred years ago, Huber, of Geneva, the blind naturalist, made his investigations into the habits and methods of the bee by the aid of his wife Aimee. It is as much to her as to her blind husband that we owe so great a portion of our knowledge of the subject in the present day. She made her observations and related what she saw to her sightless husband and he committed those observations to writing, so that ths lady apiarists at the Ruakura Government bee-farm have the sanction of a very high precedent in following their calling. While there are many of the farm pursuits

which are altogether unadapted for women here is one to which they may reasonably apply themselves. One thing we would like to point out, and that is that while undoubtedly the most profitable honey for exportation is the more highly refined sort, on account of its great market value, the less refined honey, possess medicinal value which make' it an important article of diet. We notice that some of the retailers art offering this article at a most reason able figure, and for those producers who are able to supply the less refined article it may be of interest to know that there are purchasers who prefer it, not on account of its cheapness so much as on account of its medicinal value. Retailers should do more to introduce it.