THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
17 
closed on the inside with wire cloth, and thus 
enables ventilation to he given either in very 
hot weather or when the hive is closed up for 
removal or on a transport journey. The 
frames are of two sizes, as already mentioned, 
the larger being especially for brood, and the 
smaller for honey ; both are made from sawn 
soft wood 1 inch wide by £ thick, the top 
piecesbeing 9f inches and the bottom inches 
long, and rounded a little at the ends ; but the 
sides of the brood frames are 13f inches, 
while those of the honey frames are only 6| 
inches long. All the pieces are cut to a 
pattern the correct length, and are then 
nailed together at top and bottom on a 
block of corresponding size, the top pieces 
extending f inch beyond the sides to run in 
the groove in order to secure exactness ; then 
in the top and bottom pieces, at the right 
hand corners at each side, a nail is driven, but 
standing out f of an inch, which keeps the 
frames at the proper distance from one another 
in the hive. When putting in the frames, 
push them in as far as these nails will permit 
and then put in the glass door ; this will keep 
all the frames firm, and prevents any friction 
of the combs, even in transporting them from 
one place to another. When the frames are 
fixed there is about y inch space between 
them and the sides of the hive, and under- 
neath about ^ an inch to allow the bees to 
pass to and fro, but too small to admit of 
cells being built to block up the passage. 
( To be continued. ) 
Hints on Beekeeping. 
By It. Naveau. 
Among the various events in bee life there 
never was one which afforded me more 
pleasure than swarming. Often times I have 
enjoyed myself watching the process. But 
at times one has to experience pain mixed with 
pleasure, which may occasionally become 
serious, yet it never lasts long. It never 
before, however, entered into my mind 
that far greater pleasure than at swarming 
time could be realised by queen rearing. A 
few days after the little incident occurred 
which I mentioned in the first number of the 
journal, I went into queen rearing in right 
earnest, and it so happened that on December 
the second issued a very small swarm. I hived 
the swarm at once, then went to the hive from 
which it had come, and found that all the queen 
cells were mature ; I lifted out the frame which 
contained those cells, and which I had supplied 
with eggs on Alley’s principle, and took it 
near to the window in my workshop facing 
the Apiary, and in five minutes’ time witnessed 
not less than six young queens leaving their 
cells, so that during fifteen minutes I had 
twelve virgin queens from an imported Italian 
mother safely caged on the comb and returned 
to the hive in which they were hatched. I 
was highly pleased with my success, and 
indeed it is an interesting scene to notice how 
the young queens employ their mandibles 
endeavouring to remove the lid from the royal 
cradle. For a few minutes I was a little 
perplexed what to do with all these young 
queens, and how to ensure fertilisation with 
pure drones. I made nuclei and gave them 
each a young queen, and some I introduced to 
full colonies. From one hive, a few days after 
I had introduced a queen, a swarm issued ; 
I hived the swarm, searched the old hive, and 
found that it had queen cells which I had not 
previously observed. I pinched out these cells 
and introduced another queen, but a few days 
after, when coming in close proximity to this 
hive, I noticed a strange sound, just as if two 
queens were in the hive, the one at liberty 
and the other yet in the cell. I opened the 
lid of the hive, searched every frame, and 
found no cell until I came to the very last 
one ; there I discovered j ust on the edge of a 
piece of transferred comb, a very large queen 
cell, quite mature. The sound which the 
young queen produced was so shrill that I 
could hear it many yards away in the garden. 
As soon as I got the cell out of the hive she 
crawled into my hand and I procured a nucleus 
for her. She is the largest virgin queen I 
ever saw. With one of those queens I tried 
fertilisation in confinement, but with this I 
was not successful. Some of the nuclei I 
removed at once to a locality where there were 
no bees but those which I put there myself, 
and I have therefore sufficient reason to believe 
that some of them will be purely mated. 
In the beginning of the season there was so 
little honey coming in that I said in a letter to a 
friend at Brisbane “ I shall be satisfied if my 
bees get this season as much honey as they 
need through the winter.” But recently, 
when the hot weather set in, the honey began 
to flow at once, in such a way that I cannot 
get eggs for queen rearing ; the bees will not 
allow the queens to deposit their eggs in those 
cells where the workers mean to store honey. 
When I first supposed the season to be a poor 
one I set the bees to work to draw out plenty 
of foundation, and now I reap the benefit of 
this stratagem. I find the usefulness of the 
extractor, and also the exceedingly profitable 
method I have adopted in my frames, namely, 
an upright bar in the centre of the frame. I 
meet with some frames, which have one half 
fitted with brood, the other half with pure 
honey ; I put them through the extracting 
process without breaking a single comb, amt 
the frames are not wired. 
On one of my hives which did not swarm I 
fixed glass globes for the bees to fill with 
