■parly conceived the possibility of bee- 

 farming being made a profitable business 

 in New Zealand; the country seemed so 

 well adapted for it. My enthusiastic talk 

 about taking up beekeeping as a busi- 

 ness, and raising tons of honey, gave my 

 intimate friends the impression that I 

 was really going off my head and becom- 

 ing a fit subject for an asylum. Later 

 on, when I had started with all the latest 

 appliances, thej' admitted that I must 

 have had method in my madness. In 

 looking back I can quite understand that 

 under the then condition of beekeeping 

 knowledge they had .good reason for their 

 supposition. 



I had what I may term very good 

 success with my gin-case hives, and by 

 boring several good-sized holes in the 

 roof of them, I was able to get boxes full 

 of clean honey and comb, which I had 

 placed above. From information gained 

 from a publication, "The Cottage Gar- 

 dener," I constructed bar-hives, that is, 

 boxes witli movable bars { not bar-frames ) 

 running across the tops, and movable 

 covers — the "Stewarton," "Carr-Stewar- 

 ton," and others. They were a slight 

 improvement on gin-cases, as there was 

 better communication between the lower 

 and upper boxes, but were not the thing. 



THE FIRST MOVABLE-FRAME HIVE 



IN NEW ZEALAND. 



The very first movable-frame hive seen 

 in this country was one sent by a friend 

 in California in 1876, to the late Mr. G. 

 S. Graham, of Auckland, who was inter- 

 ested in beekeeping. Captain Wildman, 

 of the Thames, was an intimate friend of 

 Mr. Graham, and he presented me with 

 two duplicates of this hive he had made 

 for me immediately after the original 

 landed. It was known in California as 

 the "Harbison" hive, after the name of 

 one of the original and most extensive 

 beekeepers of that State, who was using 

 such hives. It was, however, as I after- 

 wards discovered, a German hive, made 

 and used bj' the Baron of Berlepsch, and 

 known as the "Berlepsch hive." It con- 

 sisted of a long box standing on end, 

 with a door at the back, exactly like a 

 small cupboard ; the movable-frames were 

 in a compartment at the bottom; it was 

 a difficult job to remove them. I gave 

 them a trial later on, but soon discarded 

 them. 



FURTHER PROGRESS. 



In 1878 I learned through a correspon- 

 dent to. an English journal, who was 

 -then residing in Algeria, something of 

 the doings of A. I. Root in America. I 

 at once communicated with the latter, 

 and received in return a copy of "Glean- 

 ings" and his price list. In the mean- 

 time, I had sent to London for the best 

 bee book obtainable, and to my intense 

 delight received a copy of "Langstroth 

 on the Honey Bee." An order for a 

 comb-foundation machine, honey extrac- 

 tor, smoker, and several , other appliances 

 was sent at once to Root. In the inter- 

 val before their arrival I set about mak- 

 ing a number of Langstroth hives, so 

 that when Root's goods arrived I was 

 all ready to set up a fully-equipped 

 modern apiary, the first of its kind in 

 Australasia. 



It took some little time even after 

 receipt of the new appliances from 

 America to get thoroughly ■ underway, 

 so that it was at the commencement 

 of tlie season of 1879 before the whole 

 of my apiary of fifty colonies was fully 

 established on moclern lines. My first 

 100 Langstroth hives were cut and made 

 by hand (mostly at night time), but 

 subsequently I arranged with Messrs. 

 Bagnall Bros., of Turua, sawmillers, to 

 cut them by machinery, which they have 

 continued to do ever since. 



The first thing needed after the ar- 

 rival of the machine for making it wae 

 comb-foundation. By the way, this ma- 

 chine cost me £14 landed in Auckland, 

 and was, I believe, the second one to 

 leave the United States, the first going 

 to the late Mr. Raitt, of North Scot- 

 land. 



I well remember my first attempt — ■ 

 with the kindly aid of Mr. W. Dey, 

 now of Hamilton, Waikato — to make 

 comb-foundation. Although we worked 

 closely to the printed instructions re- 

 ceived, and with proper utensils, every- 

 thing went wrong, so much so that at 

 the end of a, strenuous day we had 

 succeeded in covering ourselves and sur- 

 roundings with wax, and had turned 

 out the large quantity of three pounds 

 of comb-foundation that was usable. 

 Subsequently, with enlarged boilers, I 

 have turned out 2001b in the same time. 

 After a while everything worked along 

 smoothly and successfully, and " The 

 Apiary" at Parawai, Thames, became a 



