262 



THE AMERICAN BEB-KBEPER 



December, 



respondents place their meaning po to 

 make it a paper for the bee-keeper, 

 especially to the amatexir. Tbe prin- 

 ciple it aims at, namely, to have cor- 

 respondents in all parts of the world, 

 is one that very few, if any, other bee 

 journal can carry out, and Is to a coun- 

 try like New Zealand Invaluable. 



We are now into spring, and the bees 

 are returning to their hives ladeii with 

 pollen, but a large number of keepers 

 report heavy losses in their bees dur- 

 ing this last winter, which, without a 

 doubt, has been a very bad one in some 

 distj-icts in the North island. 



The humble bee is doing much harm 

 here to the little bees. Thou.sands of 

 them are getting about and driving the 

 honey bee away from the white clover, 

 blue grass and other heavy honey-pro- 

 ducing plants of tills country. They 

 even enter the hives and rob the little 

 bees of their honey. 



HONEY MARKET. 



The editor, in July number, spoke of 

 the notion that bee-keepers in Amer- 

 ica have of rushing their honey to the 

 big towns, and perhaps obtaining less 

 for it than if they sold to their local 

 townsmen. I can tell our editor that 

 America Is not the only place where 

 that Is done. Here in New Zealand 

 dozens of box-hive bee-keepers rush 

 their honey to our big towns, pay 

 heavy railway rates, and in return get 

 :3d or 3 l-2d per pound or 4 shillings a 

 4ozen for comb honey, while the man 

 who sells in his local town gets 4d, 6d, 

 .5 l-2d per pound, and 6, 6 1-2, 7 1-2 and 

 8 shillings per dozen for comb honey, 

 .•and no heavy railway rates of 3-4d per 

 pound to pay in transit. I think it is 

 the novelty of sending it to a large 

 town. 



I quote last summer's honey as fol- 

 lows: Strained refined honey, 4d per 

 pound, that is, 8 cents; extracted, 5d, 

 10c, 5 1-2d, lie; retail, 66, 12c. 7d, 14c; 

 eornb honey, white, 41- (one dollar), 5j-, 

 6|-, 4|-; yellow combs. 4|-, 5|-, 6|6. 



Autumn and winter the honey has 

 gone up about y,d, 1 cent., all round, 

 there being 'great demand for pure 

 extracted hoiiey, while pressed refined 

 is not so high in price. 



Subject for next publication: "New 

 Zealand .Flora." 



Marton, N. Z., Oct. 3, 1903. 



THE VALUE OF DEEP FRAMES. 



(W. W. McNeal). 



AT THE risk of being told that my 

 hobby is deep-frame hives, I 

 wUl continue the subject in this 

 number of The American Bee-Keeper. 



I fully believe this is a matter of the 

 first importance and when rightly un- 

 derstood, will challenge the interest of 

 75 persons out of every 100 who keep 

 bees in a cold climate. 



We cannot raise honey without bees 

 and the little shallow combs do not 

 afford that protection to the colony so 

 essential to good wintering and early 

 breeding. The shallow frame was de-. 

 signed expressly to overcome the pro- 

 tective habits of the bees in the storage 

 of tJieir honey. Can the advocates of 

 the shallow frame deny this? Admit- 

 ting, then, that this radical departure 

 from the principles embodied in the old 

 box-hive was to facilitate the harvest- 

 ing of the crop — thai the advantages 

 are in favor of the apiarist and not 

 the bees, how can any one fail to grasp 

 the situation when the howling winds 

 of winter sweep around the hives? If 

 such construction of the combs is more 

 economical of animal heat, why Is it 

 that the law that governs the bees does 

 not direct her accordingly? On the 

 contrary', we see in every instance that 

 the depth of wholly natural comb ex- 

 ceeds the width of it. Bees build down- 

 wards far more readily than sidewise; 

 for such construction of the combs is 

 more in harmony with the shape of the 

 cluster, both before and after the 

 combs are ImUt. Self-preservation is 

 the basic principle in the economy of 

 the hive. It is the hub in the bee's 

 special form of government, and when 

 we thwart their purpose by hive con- 

 struction and manipulation, we must 

 lend them the fostering care of Nature. 

 They must be fed their winter's allow- 

 ance of honey or syrup and an artifi- 

 cial climate must be created for the lit- 

 tle colonies on shallow frames to coun- 

 teract the ill-devised construction of 

 them as a winter frame. 



Not only then does this so change 

 the nature of the case that principle in 

 question is no longer involved, but the 

 advocates of the shallow frame are 

 very reticent about these necessarily 

 extreme precautionary measures 

 against the inroads of frost and ice, 

 when they figure the cost of produc- 

 tion of honey. 



