lo Oct., 1910.] Tlic Position of Apiculfiirc. 615 



were suspended over milk dishes or buckets out in the sun, or indoors 

 near the fire. What remained of the combs after tlie bags ceased dripping 

 was punched into one bag, a stone tied to it, and sunk in a copper wliere 

 it was boiled for hours like a pudding. If there was much old comb, 

 only from 25 to 50 per cent, of the wax was obtained and the rest, still 

 incorporated with the refuse, thrown away. Even to this day immense 

 quantities of wax are wasted in this manner. 



To-day, swarming is controlled by the apiarist. He swarms his bees 

 artificially when it suits him, or he prevents swarming by division and re- 

 uniting later on. - He clips the wings of his queens to prevent absconding. 

 He breeds his young queens from colonies which give a maximum of 

 honey with a minimum of swarming, or no swarming at all. In this way 

 the natural swarming impulse is to a great extent eliminated. In my own 

 apiaries I had but two swarms from 240 colonies last .season, and only 

 one from the same number the season before, and that without having 

 recourse to any of the methods for preventing swarming, such as destroy- 

 ing queen-cells, dividing, or artificial swarming. 



Coming now to the taking of honey the bee-keeper to-day does not 

 rob his hives. He extracts the honey and returns the empty combs to 

 the surplus boxes put on during the honey flow. From the hive proper, 

 that is, the brood-chamber, he does not extract, so that, no matter how 

 late in the sea.son he extracts, his bees always have an ample stock of 

 food for the winter. In extracting, the combs are taken to the honey 

 house. The outer covering of the combs is sliced off, and the honey 

 removed by inserting the frames of comb into the wire baskets of a 

 reel, which revolves rapidly inside a metal can, the honey being thrown 

 out of the cells by centrifugal force. From the extractor the honey passes 

 through a heating apparatus which raises its temperature to 150 degrees. 

 This enables the use of a very fine strainer through which cold thick honey 

 cannot pass and also retards the granulation or candying of the honey 

 for a considerable time. 



The uncapping of the coml)S is done over an apparatus which melts 

 the cappings and separates honey from wax and wax from refuse, or they 

 are allowed to fall into a draining box from which they are removed to 

 the solar wax extractor, where the melting takes place by the heat of the 

 sun under a glass cover. When it is desired to obtain the wax from old 

 black combs they are boiled with water and. in a press somewhat re- 

 semUling a cheese press, the w^ax is forced out of the refuse by pressure. 

 This is bee-keeping as a special business. 



With the evolution of this system of working, the principles upon which 

 success depends have become more clearly defined. While foul brood 

 in bees has lost much of the virulence it had years ago, the methods oi 

 dealing with this disease have also become simpler, till now an apiarist 

 regards foul brood of little consequence, excepting when the source of 

 infection is outside his apiary where he cannot deal with it. \^ e have, 

 however, the assurance of the Hon. the Minister of Agriculture that legis- 

 lation will be introduced during the present session which will enable 

 owners of bees to deal with the disease. 



The methods of management of bees evolved by the specialist, the 

 appliances invented, and the improved race of bees, are noAV available, and 

 I see no reason why bee-keeping should not again become a profitable 

 addition to other rural occupations. The formidable list of rather expen- 

 sive apparatus and appliances are not essential to bee-keeping as a side 



