6i4 Journal of A. gri culture. [lo Oct., 1910. 



which was either carelessly left about or else designedly left to the bees 

 with the laudable object of helping them to make a fresh start. 



The strain of bees also had degenerated ; not so much through in- 

 breeding, as some bee-keepers think, but as a result of always robbing, 

 often repeatedly, the heaviest hives. The last robbing took place so late 

 in the season that the bees could not gather sutificient stores to carry them 

 through the winter, with the result that colonies which would have been 

 most valuable as stud stock were exterminated, while the in- 

 crease in the following season consisted of the swarms from 

 the colonies which were too poor to be worth robbing. Much 

 of the deterioration of the common black bee is due to this cause. 

 Moreover, the hives, usually in gin or kerosene cases, being too small for 

 good, strong colonies of bees in a climate such as ours, and with such 

 honey yielding flora as the Eucalypts, the natural swarming impulse was 

 developed to excess and the normal strength of stocks declined much in 

 consequence. 



About 25 years ago, the bar-frame hive was adopted 1)V a number of 

 bee-keepers, and Italian bees introduced about the same time. The frame 

 hive permits of an easy examination of combs and with watchfulness foul 

 brood is detected in its first stages when a prescribed treatment will effect 

 a cure. It was also found that Italian bees resisted the disease better 

 than the common black bees. There was, however, so much disease 

 amongst bees in box hives and bee trees that apiaries of frame hives 

 became repeatedly re-infected from outside sources. Only those bee- 

 keepers who could give all or most of their time could cope with the disease, 

 while others, who either had not the time or the inclination for constant 

 supervision, gave up bees altogether. The use of the honey extractor 

 and new methods of management enabled the specialist to produce much 

 larger quantities of honey than had been obtained before, while the honey 

 itself was of better quality. As a result of increased production, prices 

 declined while the improvement in quality made so-called bush honey at 

 times quite unsaleable. The number of bee-keepers decreased while, at 

 the same time, the total number of hives steadily increased. Bee-keeping 

 had. to a great extent, become a special independent calling. 



With a number of people giving their whole time and thought to this 

 business new ways of overcoming difficulties were discovered, and new 

 appliances invented, which reduced labour and thus cheapened production, 

 so that the lower price was amply compensated for bv the larger yields 

 obtained. With the reduction in price, the consumption of honey in- 

 creased rapidly, and notwithstanding the fact that the annual production 

 has doubled in a few years, we still fail to supply the whole of the demand 

 in Victoria. Importations from other States still come in, excepting in 

 certain seasons of very heavy yields, when owdng to the absence of any 

 system of regulating the supply an occasional glut occurs at auction 

 rooms. 



To illustrate the difference between bee-keeping of the early days and 

 that of the present, compare the work of a bee-keeper 30 years ago with 

 that of the modern apiarist. Swarming time was then a lively time; bees 

 would swarm and swarm again and again and sometimes, in spite of the 

 most \igorous tin-kettling, abscond to parts unknown. At robbing time there 

 was much hammering of boxes and, notwithstanding the most elaborate 

 precautions in coverings of head and limbs, tliere were swollen faces and 

 limbs and honey everywhere. Rows of bags containing the bruised combs 



