BEE-KEEPING.

Waikato Times, Volume XIX, Issue 1620, 21 November 1882, Page 4

BEE-KEEPING.

The mild winter and &io ! bright sunshine of early spring have provided the always busy bee with its little loads of pollen' and honey, the spring flowers and early fruit blossoms having yielded both in unusual abundance. Provision must bo made for the brood with which the queens have for the last month or more been stocking the combs. In the wellregulated bee-kingdom the queen does not commence egg-laying until honey and pollen, for the sustenance of her numerous family, are coming in regularly ; thus the careful and hopeful bee-muster commences to stimulate his bees by gentle feeding and the provision of artificial pollen so soon as March comes in, or event earlier, should he care to run the risk of severe weather interfering with and stopping the two early activity induced by him. The old-fashioned straw skep, the pictureque addition, at least by artists, to every cottage, is rapidly becoming a thing of the past with beekeepers. Great advances have been made during the last few years in the Knowledge of the habits of the industrious little cicatuns, and now beekeeping has become a science, and there arc men attached to the British Beekeepers' and Country Associations as experts, putting apiaries in order, and advising on all questions of bee-culture ; and there are also improved hive makers in nearly every county town. A Itogether there is a large amount of interest taken, and a considerable amount of capital invested in bee-keeping at the present time. A few weeks since a clever young expert, enthusiastic in his business, read a paper before the British Beekeepers' Association, describing ins travels and adventures in Cyprus and the East in search of Cyprian arid other queens for rearing these varieties in England. These are also regular breeders in Italy of the Ligurian or yellow-banded bee, much sought after by the beekeepers of England, Scotland, and America, for its known gentleness, prolificnesb, love of hard work, and for the fact that it is able by the length of its proboscis b) work the red clover, a honey-yielding plant which our black English bee is compelled to neglect. Gre.it numbers of these queens are distributed annually throughout the country ; they travel from Italy, each packed in a small box, and accompanied by a small retinue of subjects. There is sufficient food enclosed to keep them in condition to the journey's end, and they arrive not much the worse for their long travels. The present price of these choice queens ranges from six shillings to a guinea each, the price varying more according to the paiticular dealer than the strain. In accordance v itl) the new teachino, bees should be no longer kept m the straw skep, the inside of which remains so great a mystery to tliu wondering cottager, but in wooden hives, each one of which is fitted -w ith a number of movable frames hanging parallel iv the hive, and in which the bees are made to build their combs for the queen to deposit her many thousands of eggs, and the woiker bees to store their honey. The \\\ix of ■which the comb is made is in reality honey changed in the body of the bee, when, after undergoing this digestive process, it exudes fiom pores in their sides, and, on cooling, forms into flaky scales, and is then worked by the little creatures, with beautiful and marvellous delicacy, into their comb. In the production of lib of •wax, the quantity used in building the combs of a moderate-bized hive, the bees consume about 201b of honey ; and it sometimes happens, to the dissappointjnent and discomfiture of the bee-master, that, if honey is coming in but slowly, by the time bis bees have httcd and f nrmshed their home, the Aveathcr breaks up, the honey season is finished, and, instead of reaping a surplus profit, the bees have fto be fed to be kept from starvation. The Americans, always foitmost as> npicultui iats, invented comb-foundation, thsl is, sheets of w&s. stamped on either tide -with the shape and size of the ordinary cell, and containing enough wax in substance for the bees to work out into a full comb. Thus, at a small expense, the bceb arc furnished with the materials of their combs. The usual .size of hive will lcquiie about two pounds of these wax sheets, stamped w ith uearily b"0,000 cells ; and being at once shaped out, they are ready, when a flow of honey bets in, to store that '20 pounds they would otherwise have expended m building their house. When stored and sealed np in the cells it is leady for the economical bce-fauner to ex ti act, which lie pioceeds to do. First removing the frame and shaking the bees back into the hive, he uncaps the honey-cells, places the frame of comb ina&mor extiacting-ma-chine, audby a scriesof iapidie\olutions. throws out the honey into the extractor by centrifugal foice ; afterwards returning the comb, which represents so muchfhed capital, iuto the hive for the bees to fill .again. Such doings at this, and the raising of young queens, legiilatmg the production of worker and drone brood of combe weie nor possible with such hives as our respected and venerable friend, the straw hi\e. But the tenacity ■with winch the rustic bee keepers, or, as fie becomes in autumn, " hev-buiuer," clings to this hiubourerof mice and moth as well as the bee, is astonishing. Talking will not change his inspect for what, to him, is a sound and honouied institution ; and so it is that the British Beekeopcia' Association oilers prizes for the best-regulated and most economical and profitably apiary, which commencing with a capital not exceeding £2, pi ovides out of this' bees, hives, <uul all the necessaries for its success. The competition extends from Muy of this year until the close of the honey season in ISS3. One condition of this competition is that the hives shall be kept in a cottager 's garden, thus forming local centres of information, where knowledge of the habits of bees and the profits and jidvantages of the scientific manner of keeping bees can be acquired at the hands of the practical men engaged in the competition, by the cottager and his friends. Tin's competition seems to attack thestiaw skep, with its vermin, dirt, and supeistition, in a business-like w r ay. —(Vail Mall Oazette.)