38 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
produced for a very sliort interval, and the 
fluid will have become a dark olive green 
color. New fluid should then be used ; 
indeed, it is economy never to try to work 
with a weak used-up fluid. 
Now, about using the battery. The frames 
being- wired, the foundation is laid on a board 
just the size of the inside of the frame, made 
so that in laying the frame over the board 
and foundation, the bottom bar, which is 
usually curved with wiring, shall be straight- 
ened out, and the wires stretch straight across 
the foundation. Now take one of the leading 
wires in your left hand and touch firmly one 
of the frame wires, close to the bottom of the 
frame, with the other lead in the right hand, 
touch firmly the other end of the same frame 
wire, and if the battery is good the whole 
length of wire gets warm and melts its way 
into the foundation to the base of the cells. 
If the battery is not strong enough to do this 
except very slowly, halve the distance; that 
is, make two steps of it, yoru- left hand 
lead close to bottom bar, the other in middle 
of wire, and it will probably do it instan- 
taneously ; next shift your left hand lead to the 
middle and your right close to top bar, and so 
on. I frequently find it quickest to make two, 
three, or even four steps across a wire accord- 
ing- to the state of my battery ; it is done as 
quick as you can touch the wire almost. Two 
precautions are necessary ; keep the touching 
parts of your leads clean, or wax may stop the 
current. 2nd. Lift your left hand lead 
before the right, or the warm wire may spring 
out of the foundation again. A little practice 
and a good battery makes quick work of it, 
quicker and far more certain than any other 
method, not excepting the new “Woiblet 
spur” method, which I have tried and cast 
aside as not comparable to the battery method. 
Of course, any form of battery can be used 
if it has sufficient current ; a small dynamo 
machine, where there is a great deal of work 
to do and there is motive power in the apiary 
works, would be the best of all. Perhaps, also, 
in a large apiary a set of three or four large 
Daniels’ cells, joined up for quantity current 
(which once set going require little attention), 
would be the most advantageous source of the 
electric current, but the plan I adopt is perhaps 
the most convenient for a small apiary, and 
even for a large one, until the superiority of 
the method has been clearly proved. 
Where bichromate batteries of smaller size 
only can be obtained, couple them together in 
this manner — with copper wire like the lead- 
ing wires, join the binding screws of one zinc 
with the zincs of the other cells ; join also the 
carbons in the same way and take your 
leading wires from any carbon and any zinc in 
the set. By doing this you make all the zincs 
into one large plate, and all the carbons too, 
and, together, it is equal to a battery with 
plates equal in surface to the sums of the 
surfaces of the small ones. Any number of 
small cells may be thus combined into one 
large cell ; for it must he remembered it is a 
large quantity of electricity is wanted to heat 
the wires, and this is better got from one 
large surface cell than from several cells 
joined in series together. The mode of joining 
up, given above, is called joining up for 
quantity, and really combines any number of 
cells into one large one. It. L. J. Ellebt. 
IRews anC> IReports front Colonial 
Hptarles. 
THE P AIRFIELD APIARY. 
Having read with interest the descrip- 
tions of several Apiaries given in your 
Journal, I send you the following of a South 
Australian Apiary, thinking that it maybe in- 
teresting to many of yoiu- readers. I believe 
the Fairfield Apiary to be the largest in South 
Australia,it is the property of Messrs. Coleman 
and May, and is situated at Mount Barker, 
about 25 miles south-east of Adelaide. The 
the township of Mount Barker is one of the 
prettiest in Australia, being situated in park- 
like, undulating country, with mile after mile 
of hedgerow, while clumps of large gum, and 
other trees relieve the laudscape, the mount 
itself rising- from the outskirts and overlooking 
the township. The fail-field estate is about 
1-| miles from the township, the hulk of it 
being in meadow land, well sheltered with 
trees, amongst others are some fine oaks and 
willows, over forty years of ag-e, some of the 
former having a spread of about sixty feet. 
There is also an extensive garden and orchards, 
a large English-looking house, and the usual 
farm buildings, whilst the whole of the general 
surroundings betoken taste and refinement. 
But it is with the Apiary that we have to deal, 
a distant view of which can he obtained before 
the entrance gates are reached ; it is situated 
in the garden near the house, on a hill facing 
the north-east. The long rows of white hives, 
placed at regular intervals, in curved lines 
round the hill-slope, seen at the aist ance of 
which I am speaking, look more like the 
upright grave-stones seen in some English 
cemetery, than anything else I am acquainted 
with. 
In the foreground two glistening objects 
may be seen which turn out to be solar wax 
extractors. In the rear of the hives is a sweet- 
briar hedge about ten feet high, behind this 
may he seen the tops of the pines and other 
trees which form an avenue leading to the house. 
About the centre of the rows of hives, and 
against the hedge, is a neat weatherboard 
building, this is the extracting house. 
I believe that the present family were the 
first beekeepers in the neighborhood, having 
imported their first swarm of bees from 
Sydney some thirty years ago, hut it is only 
about three years since they began to go exten- 
