THE AUSTRALIAN' BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
9 
bad ns regards color, for it gets no hot in the 
hot Hummer huh as to often cause the combs 
to soften enough to drop down ; paint if white 
over the red and thin objection ceases, and 
the gin case becomes a good bo* hive. Un- 
colored or unpainted boxes get dark colored 
in a little time when exposed to the weather 
and therefore absorb the suns heat as bad or 
worse then the red gin case. 
To make the best of box-hive beekeeping, 
have the lioxes of one size as far as possible 
for this leason : when you want to drive the 
be< * from a full into an empty hive, in order 
to take the honey, it is so easily done if the 
new hive is exactly the same size as the old 
one. 
Paint all the hives white or nearly white, 
make the entrances — not the little notches, 
they usually are through which the bees can 
neither ventilate the hive properly, nor get in 
ami out fast enough in busy times— but cut 
out from the edge of one end or one side of the 
box a long notch $ of an inch deep nnd H or 
10 inches long, so that it makes an entrance 
th >t size when it is put on its bottom board. 
If the swarm is weak, or cold weather comes 
on be fort? they are strong, you can easily di- 
minish this opening by a little piece of board 
placed before it. 
Don't leave aDy holes or cracks in the hive 
besides this opening. 
Most people put the lioxes with the longest 
side to the front ; we think it hest to put the 
shortest side to the front. 
Kneh box should have a board, a strip of 
bark, some palings, or anything of the kind, put 
on the top to keep it weather-tight aud pro- 
tect it a little from the suns rays. 
By sttending to these two or three poiuts, 
bees will l>e found to thrive better and store 
more honey than those w here no such preen u- 
tions are taken. Straw hives or skeps are cer- 
tainly far better tbnn boxes and it is a wonder 
they are not used here, for they could be 
made very cheaply. 
It has often struck us that some of the ad 
vantage* of frame hives could be obtained 
from simple lioxes by a very little ingenuity. 
If a box i* got ready to receive a swarm 
(earn candle box), and some clean bees wax 
incited anil poured on the bottom of the box 
in straight lines sons to make several lines of 
wax parallel with one of the sides or ends, and 
each line of wax an inch and a half, or an inch 
and a quarter apart, the bees will commence 
tp build their combs on these lines of wax. 
and will build them all nearly ]vtnvlle.l. Now 
supposing the bottom of the be* which is the 
lop of the kit*, to be made loose and removable, 
when it is full of comb and honey it would 
be only ncccsnury to pass a long knife around 
the stiles of the hive wherever the comb was 
attached, and the top with all the comb could 
be lifted off. nuch combs as are full of honey 
Cut out and those with brood put hack. This 
is only one way in which a box hive could he 
made to do part of the duty of a frame hive, 
and ordinary ingenuity would soon suggest 
other ways. However, as regards the hive 
question only. Good sound hues of the same 
size or all of two sizes only, all painted white 
with entrances as described, will Ire a great 
improvement upon the methods in which 
box hive apiaries are usually arranged. It 
may not Ire generally known that boxes, all of 
the same size and quite as good, or better than 
gin or candle cases can be obtained from our 
Metropolitan timber yards as cheap, and, if 
in nnmliers, cheaper than the latter can lie 
bought at the stores. 
(To be continued.) 
Correspondence. 
CYPRIAN BEES. 
Mb. Acqust Fiebio’s Views Examined. 
In the Australian Iftekeepert' Journal for March, 
INSfi, which through the courtesy of R. L. J. 
Ellery, Esq., lias been placed in my hands, I 
find a paper upon “ The Various Races of 
Bees and their Peculiarities ns Observed by an 
Apiarian.” The author is Mr. August Fiebig, 
a German resident in South Australia, and the 
jiaper was rend at one of the monthly meet- 
ings of the South Australian Beekeepers' 
Association, then published in the Adelaide 
Observer — a copy of which Mr. A. E. Bonney, 
of Adelaide, kindly forwarded to me. The 
great publicity given to this essay by Mr. 
Fiebig, causes me to ask space for some 
remarks on tire ideas it contains ; for, in all 
my experience with various races of bees, nnd 
my reading of most of the apiarian journals 
of the world, it has never been my lot to come 
across, within three pages of printer! matter, 
a greater conglomeration of absurdly incorrect 
statements about some of the races of bees, 
nor an essay on this subject which apjiearvd 
to have been dictated by a greater amount of 
prejudice, than this one by Mr. Fiebig. In 
these remarks I shall confine myself this time 
to Cyprians, yet will preface them by saying 
that 1 have seen and handled all the races 
mentioned by Mr. Fiebig. anil with most of 
them hnve had some years' experience ; also I 
have visited the native lands of all these 
races, oxi-ept the Caucasian, and have had no 
object, nor have I now, other than to arrive at 
the plain trut i in the matter. 
Seven years ago (in March, 1880) I first 
landed in Cyprus. From childhood, I had in 
uiy native land (America), had more or less to 
do with the common bees, and later with 
Italians, so that when I found myself, twenty 
years after my first lessons in bee-manag.’- 
ment. with 210 colonies of bees tinder my care 
in 1880, I can fairly claim, even though I had 
never previously handled Cyprians, I was not 
out of my element. Two seasons were passed 
