Report of the Senior Steward of Live- Stock at Nottingham. G31 
advantiig^ of being bard-feeders!. It was the general opinion — and we quite 
indorse it — that a large proportion of the Tamworths at Nottingham sho^^•ed 
a great improvement in this respect. 
Joseph Smith. 
Hebek TIumfkey. 
[For Reports on Poultry- Classes see page C44.] 
Bee Department. 
Rejwrt of the Judges of Hives, Honey, and Bee Ajipliances. 
It may be fairly claimed for the Bee Department of the " Royal " Show 
at Nottingham that it was one of the most attractive and most numerously 
attended, in the successful meeting of 1888. Judging by the crowded state 
of the manipulating tent, and the general interest taken in the very large 
display of bee appliances on view, particularly on the last two days of the 
show, there can be no doubt that bee-keeping has made a considerable im- 
pression on the minds of the agricultural population. 
Hitherto farmers have been disposed to look askance at bee-keeping, 
evidently considering it either so small a matter as to be unworthy of atten- 
tion, or that the difBcidties attendant on success in honey production are 
too great for them. Besides these, some few farmers, to our own knowledge, 
have looked upon bees as positively injurious to their crops ; arguing that 
what accrues to the bee-keeper is lost to the farmer, in fact, that the nectar 
extracted by bees from, say clover bloom, is so much produce stolen from 
him. It is gratifying, however, to find these prejudices rapidly dying out ; 
the more enlightened intelligence of to-day admits that the last-named 
grievance has no foundation whatever in fact. Not only so, but farmers are 
— slowly, it is true, but surely — introducing bee-keeping on their farms as 
being far more profitable than some other things requiring greater care and 
attention than the keeping of a few colonies of bees. 
"NVe know of nothing that can so readily be added to one hranch of 
dairy-farming, i.e. milk retailing, as honey selling. Among at least a dozen 
farmers in Lancashire, of whom we have personal knowledge, and who have 
within the last year or two taken up bee-keeping, one in particular — who 
runs three milk shandries — assured us that his only difficulty was in getting 
sections of honey sufhcient for his customers. His men are asked " when 
the honey will be ready," and it is freely purchased as soon as produced ; so 
that the farmer here has what so many lack, viz. a good market for his 
produce without seeking for it. We were also much interested of late, 
while passmg through the market at Carlisle, where on market days small 
farm-produce is sold, to see a farmer's wife busy selling sections of honey 
from her own farm, to the evident envy of her neighbours, who had only 
eggs, butter, &c., to offer. 
In short, the Shows of the British Bee-Keepers' Association have made 
an impression on the mind of tlie farmer, which in these times of agricul- 
tural depression is beginning to assert itself. There is no one from whom 
the small farmer especially will so readily take a lesson as from one of his 
own class, and this is just what he is now doing. So soon as a man makes 
a few stocks of bees " pay well," his neighbour will take note of the fact ; 
and he needs but to attend a " Royal " Show to see bees handled, and to 
find hee-keepers ready and willing to give him all the information in their 
power. 
The form in which bee-keeping most commends itself to farmei-s is 
not to embark extensively in the business, but to begin by keeping two or 
three hives as an adjunct to the ordinary farm work, and advance accord- 
