THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
75 
however, a gentleman in Australia who has 
most diligently investigated this bee disease, 
and obtained remarkable success in its treat- 
ment by some of the methods referred to 
above. We refer to the experienced and well- 
known apiculturist, Mr A. E. Bonney, of 
Adelaide, and we hope shortly to place before 
our readers an article from his pen upon this 
most important matter, which cannot fail to 
be of great value, and will possibly remove 
our present doubts as to the best mode of treat- 
ment of foul brood in Australia. 
In a future number we hope to give definite 
instructions for carrying into practice several 
of the methods of cure we have spoken of. 
Hints for the Season. 
Hives should now be got ready for the 
coming season, carefully cleaned, especially 
inside, and for this nothing is better than a 
scrubbing brush and hot soapsuds, to which is 
added a tablespoonful of common carbolic acid 
to every gallon. Let the bottom boards inside 
of the hives and roofs be well scrubbed with 
this and put out in the sun to dry. They 
should then be painted outside, so the paint is 
well hardened before the hives have to be used. 
Frames should be now got ready for insert- 
ing the comb foundation, and all frames of 
combs saved from last season, except such as 
were taken from diseased stocks, or stocks 
suspected of disease, which should be destroyed 
in toto, should be examined, and if in good 
condition put away ready for use, for they are 
very valuable to help on stocks and swarms in 
the early season. Any that have signs of 
moth, grubs, or other insects, should be fumi- 
gated in an old barrel or box with the vapour 
of burning sulphur. 
Arrange at once where any new stocks or 
your early swarms are to be placed, and 
prepare the ground ready to receive the hive. 
If any sowing of bee plants is to be made, it 
is now time to prepare the ground. Many 
hardy plants should be sown in August or 
early in September. Sunflowers are very 
useful, and by successive sowings from now 
till January, or even later, they will furnish a 
constant supply of pollen right into the 
winter. borage, phaeelia, ceutauria (corn 
cockle,) all splendid honey plants in this 
climate, can be sown in succession; but phaeelia 
does not stand the hot, dry weather, and 
should not be sown later than November. 
If one possesses a vegetable garden, let some 
turnips and cabbages run to seed and bloom, 
and sow some common mustard for early bee 
food. Aniseed makes a good bee plant and 
should be sow r n soon. A favourite bee flower 
in England, the himnanthes Bouglassii, does 
once, well here in spring, and should be sown at 
as it will only do well up to about November. 
Jottings from Colonial, English, and 
Foreign Bee Journals. 
The British Bee Journal has recently devoted 
some considerable space to non-sioarminq 
management, from which it appears that 
working for section-box honey conduces to 
swarming, and that non-swarming can only 
be secured by giving plenty of room to the 
bees immediately a honey flow commences, 
and working for extracted honey. One 
method described may be briefly described as 
follows : — The stocks must be very strong 
before the first honey flow begins, and the 
queen must be young and fertile. The bees 
are kept by division boards to only as many 
combs as they can cover, but are given outside 
combs as they increase till the hive is full of 
frames and bees almost overflowing, then 
another hive is put on the top with frames 
of cotnb, which is soon taken possession of by 
the bees. They rapidly increase, and store 
honey, and if the season is good a third story, 
with combs or frames of foundation is soon 
wanted, and even a fourth, which is inserted 
between the second and third. By this 
method the extracting can be done at anv 
convenient time, or it may be left till a lull in 
the honey flow occurs, or till the end of the 
season, when all the honey in the hive is ripe 
and sealed. By this method it is stated all 
desire for swarming is prevented, and the 
colony gets enormously strong, and collects 
very large quantities of honey. This is the 
plan adopted by some of our Queensland 
friends, who reap such gigantic honey harvests. 
It is only the hives that do not swarm that 
give us the big yields. Swarming and honey 
returns seldom go together. 
In the same journal we see Mr. Simmins, 
who writes a good deal upon the art, advertises 
a new and original non-swarming system, 
which also depends on giving the bees plenty 
of room directly they begin to increase rapidly 
in spring. As far as we understand his 
method, it seems he places his frames across 
the hive from side to side, not from back to 
front as in the Langstroth, and keeps his bees 
breeding at the back of the hive, and giving 
them frames with starters of foundation only, in 
the front of the hive as they increase. At the 
same time he places sections with combs already 
workedout over the back frames of the hive, and 
he states the bees rapidly fill these sections, 
while the room given in front of the hive for 
increasing the size of the nursery prevents the 
swarming impulse arising, and the bees devote 
their whole energy to filling the hive. Mr. 
Simmins’ method is published in a pamphlet 
entitled A New Era in Bee-keeping . 
It has been assumed that the presence of 
bacilli in bees, means disease in bees ; but the 
Editor of the British Bee Journal has crossed 
