the 
astraliau §tt(utprs 
JOURNAL. 
Yol. I— No. 1.] DECEMBER, 1885. [Price 6d. 
EDITORIAL NOTICES, &c. 
Preface. 
The desire often expressed among beekeepers 
in Australia, and Victoria in particular, for a 
journal devoted to the art of beekeeping and 
bee culture, and to advocating the commercial 
advantages to be derived from its cultivation 
and encouragement, has induced us to venture 
the issue of a periodical to be called the 
“Australian Beekeepers’ Journal,” which it is 
intended shall be published monthly. By its 
means we hope to lay before our readers every 
month an abstract of the proceedings of 
Beekeepers’ Associations in various parts of 
Australia, the most important news concerning 
Apiculture from the world generally ; the 
doings and discussions of the Victorian Bee- 
keepers’ Club, news from our various Colonial 
apiaries, accounts of improvements or inven- 
tions connected with Beekeeping, ventilation 
of questions concerning the market for Bee 
produce, and generally to inform and assist 
our readers in all matters pertaining to the 
subject. As a very great deal can be done in 
these directions by communications, questions, 
replies to queries, &c., from Beekeepers them- 
selves, we intend to reserve a considerable part 
of our columns for contributions of this kind, 
and invite our friends engaged or interested in 
the art of Apiculture to communicate any 
information they may obtain likely to be of 
any use or interest to their brother Beekeepers. 
At the same time we ask “beginners” and 
others in want of information or in any 
difficulty, to write freely and unreservedly to 
the journal, in order that any of its readers or 
its Editors may reply to the questions and 
assist in spreading information and over- 
coming difficulties to the best of their know* 
ledge. We hope the journal will find its way 
to the hands of every Beekeeper, whether he 
be a cottager with his stock or two domiciled 
in a candle-box, gin-case, or other primitive 
hive, the dweller in a suburban villa keeping 
bees as a recreation, the regular bee farmer or 
the professed Apiculturist, and have therefore 
determined to issue at a very moderate price 
Wo need scarcely say anything as to the want 
of such a journal, but we wish to point out 
that while the climates and conditions of 
Australia generally are much more favorable 
to Apiculture than those of many countries 
where it is carried on as an immense and very 
profitable undertaking, very little has yet been 
done towards making it an important industry 
in this part of the world, and but comparatively 
little is known of the special management and 
requirements in bee culture, which may be the 
most profitable under the particular conditions 
of climate and vegetation which exist in Aus- 
tralia. We have no experience of whether 
the black, the Italian, the Cyprian, the Holy 
Land bee is best suited to our condition or 
their adaptability to different parts of the 
Australian Continent. We have all to learn 
in this respect. Nor is much known of how 
best to manage bees most profitably, or of the 
best methods of marketing the products. We 
do know, however, what great loss is incurred 
every year, especially among cottagers by the 
barbarous and wasteful way in which hives 
are “robbed” in Autumn, and how much 
honey is rendered comparatively unmarketable 
by the ordinary way of separating it from the 
combs. In this direction especially we trust 
our journal may gradually bring about a 
reformation, and in issuing our first number 
we invite the assistance and co-operation of all 
