BEE-KEEPING ABROAD.

Temuka Leader, Issue 803, 20 December 1881, Page 2

BEE-KEEPING ABROAD.

Chambers' Journal).; is still in its infancy at the antipodes, as. | compared with the results from apicultureelsewhere ; notably in.the United States. Occasionally, even in the inclement north,.. j we bear, of people who practice the. [ humane non-swarming system—by which none of the iodustrious little workers are ! stifleo—obtaining as much as seventynine pounds weight of honty per annual, from each hive. In the Ukraine (Polish, Russia), it is a matter of common occurrence for the peasants to own five hundred hives apiece, and to boast occasionally that they make more money thereby than the farmers from their crops. At Mount Ida,.in the island of Crete ; Narbonne, in France; and Chamouni, i« Switzerland, apiculture has long carried on extensively, and the value and fame of their honey is known all over Europe. But it is in America that this lucrative industry is- to. be seeu in it» fullest dimensions. It appears, from an article in the Times, of January 14, 18791 that bee-keeping is conducted in the United States by means of lurge capital, many persons owning from two thousartc chree hundred to fiv.- thousand swarm* of bees, and in the case of Messrs Thun er ofNawYork, twelve thousand swarms. These apiculturists, indeed, in 1878 ex ported to Great Britain three hnndre< thousand pounds weight of - houey being part of a product all ove the United States that year «>f tldrty-fiv million pounds. The American mode o conducing the industry is this. Farmer and proprietors of orchards at intervals c three or four miles apart are arrange with, either at a fixed r-nf or for a shajfl ef the honey produced ; and probably otfl

hnnihwls.arms are boar led with i-RC'i agriculturist. Properly tmine I servants are sent round at regular intervals to c'ean the loves, lemove saturated combs, and to destroy all parasitical or useless insects. In this way the farmer or g >rdetier has very linle responsibility ; mid the pecuniary r mil> at the end of favorable seasons is highly satisf ictory, asea'h suitable acre suffi- es for twenty-five swarm*, and the insect boarders on four acres caD be attended to by one man. The remunerative nature of the industry will be admitted when we mention tha* in America the seven years ending with 187!) exhibited an averuge harvest of ninety pounds weight of honey per hive which realised about tenpence per pound, or, exclusive of the value of the wax. a gross return of ninety-three pounds per, acre.—Chambers's Journal.