Live Stock. 



April 1908. 



In order to extract honey from combs 

 or sections, yon must have an uncapping- 

 knife to shave off the caps of the cells, 

 and a centrifugal extracting machine, 

 which costs from 14s. to about £2. It is 

 as well, however, to remember that 

 honey gathered from heather or buck- 

 wheat is too thick to extract by means 

 of a machine. The extractor is also fre- 

 quently used to empty a brood-comb of 

 honey when the bees are filling cells too 

 quickly in the brood-nest and thereby 

 leaving the queen no room to lay her 

 eggs. 



When you come to your honey-harvest, 

 you will require a sheet of queen-exclud- 

 ing zinc for each hive- This is laid 

 above the brood-nest and prevents the 

 queen going up into the super to lay 

 eggs there, while the perforations are 

 sufficiently large to permit easy passage 

 to workers. These cost about lOd. to Is. 

 each in England. And when you come 

 to remove rack? of sections from your 

 hives, you will find a super-clearer (cost- 

 ing about 2s. each) very useful. It is a 

 board which is slipped iinder the super 

 and allows the bees already in it to go 

 down into the body-box, but prevents 

 any bees returning into the super. 

 Twenty-four hours after putting it on, 

 you will find not a bee among your 

 sections. 



When extracting from sections, remem- 

 ber to put back the empty sections as 

 soon as possible into the hive for the 

 bees to refill. They will do this in a few 

 days, as they have no need to spend any 

 time or energy over building new combs. 



All cappmgs shaved from cells, and, in 

 fact, every scrap of waste wax should be 

 carefully collected and melted down, 

 either in a solar wax-naelter (.costing 

 about 15s., which gives the whitest wax), 

 or in an old fish-kettle, placing the wax 

 on the upper (perforated) surface and 

 filling the lower part with water. The 

 kettle, is placed over the fire and allowed 

 to boil, when the wax falls through into 

 the water and, when cold, forms a thick 

 crust on its surface. Wax— pure bees- 

 wax, that is — always commands and 

 always will command a large market 

 and high prices ; and the bee-keeper will 

 find a small supply very useful to have 

 near him, as he will frequently require 

 it to fix starters of foundation to frames. 



Extracted honey should be put up in 

 h lb. or 1 lb. bottles — procurable from 

 any bee-dealer at about 11 to 16 shillings 

 per gross, the more expensive ones being 

 screw-capped — and labelled attractively 

 with your name. Sections should be 

 packed in little cardboard boxes (costing 

 about 4 to 12 shillings per hundred, ac- 



cordingly as they have glass sides or not) 

 and likewise labelled. All bee-dealers 

 mako a specialty of supplying labels 

 printed in colours— generally with a 

 picture of a bee-hive or a spray of 

 flowers — with the words: "Pure honey 



from the Apiary of ." They cost 



about seven shillings per thousand — or 

 possibly even cheaper. If they attract 

 even one customer or induce a customer 

 to pay one cent, per lb. more for the 

 honey, you are well repaid ! 



Agricultural shows are frequent in all 

 parts of the Island. You should utilise 

 these for the purpose of advertising your 

 wares. Have a nice exhibit of sections 

 and bottles of your honey, and make up 

 your mind to give away fifty sections as 

 presents. At oue end of the show- 

 ground (where the public will not be 

 disturbed) exhibit a hive of bees -if pos- 

 sible an observatory-hive— and handle 

 them from time to time for the public to 

 see. If you put up a notice that you 

 would handle them at 11 a.m. and 4 p.m., 

 and that you would give notice by ring- 

 ing a bell, you would have a seething 

 crowd round you every time. You may 

 ask what attracts them. What attracts 

 a crowd when a man ad vertises his inten- 

 tion of entering a cage of lions ? They 

 hope, of course, to see you stung — and 

 they will be disappointed, for the bees 

 will be so confused by the crowd of 

 people that they will be harmless ! 



I shall now bring my papers to an end. 

 I have not told you much, but the rest 

 you will quickly learn by experience. 

 I will therefore wish all that have fol- 

 lowed my remarks with a view to start- 

 ing apiculture every success and a 

 pleasant addition to their breakfast- 

 tables and their incomes. 



VETERINARY NOTES. 



FOOT-AND-MOUTH DISEASE. 



In view of the outbreak of foot-and- 

 mouth disease in Edinburgh, referred to 

 in my last contribution, the British 

 Medical Journal of the 14th March, 1908, 

 contains some interesting facts about 

 the disease. 



2. Three German Veterinary Sur- 

 geons, it is said, made the experiment of 

 drinking daily about a quart of milk 

 obtained from cows affected with this 

 disease. 



3. On the second day of the experi- 

 ment one of the men manifested fever, 

 headache and itching of the hands and 

 fingers. Five days later a vesicular 

 eruption was seen in the mucous mem- 

 brane of his tongue, cheeks and lips and 

 on the skin of his hands and fingers. 



