104 THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
Comb honey is in good demand, especially 
in 1 lb. or 2 lb. section boxes. Well filled 
1 lb. command from Os. to 11s. per dozen. 
There is every appearance of an increasing 
demand for comb honey in this form, and it 
behoves our beekeepers to devote more atten- 
tion to the production of section-box honey in 
the most attractive form, that is clean, well- 
filled, and completely sealed We have seen 
crates of sections on sale which, in England or 
America, would not be looked at on account of 
their soiled, broken, dripping condition, yet 
fetching 9s. or 10s. per dozen wholesale, and 
retailing readily. A nice, clean white section 
box, well filled and completely capped, would 
soon leave the messy samples we refer to in 
the lurch. 
A great mistake is, we are sure, often made 
by leaving the sections in the hive till they 
are all filled ; for if there is any break in the 
honey flow, the boxes soon get soiled by the 
bees continually running over them. Let 
them he watched during the honey flow, and 
taken out immediately they are sealed all 
over, filling up the vacancies by removing 
partially filled outside sections, and placing 
fresh section boxes on the outsides, or even 
simply putting the new boxes where a fitted 
one has been removed. 
Packing and carriage of sample box honey is 
another point to which apparently little care 
is given, or they would certainly have a, 
better appearance than most of the samples 
we have inspected. These lit tie boxes should 
be packed as carefully for carriage and sale 
as they are for the bees — always keeping the 
tight, side up — that, is they should always be 
in the , dtion they are in hive or leakage 
takes place, and a mess is the result. 
proceedings ot' Beekeepers’ 
associations. 
BRITISH BEEKEEPERS* ASSOCIATION. 
Mr. Cowan’s Visit to America. 
At the quarterly conversazione of the British 
Beekeepers* Association, held in London on 
the 19th of October last, Mr. Cowan, the well- 
known British jipieii.lt mist, presided. 
The Rev. Mr. Scott suggested that as the 
Chairman had very recently paid a visit to 
North America, where he had seen many of 
the Canadian gentlemen who were in London 
last year, and had also inspected some of the 
largest apiaries in the world, it would be ex- 
tremely inti resting to the beekeepers present 
if he would kindly describe the wonders he 
had seen, and also what kind of a reception he 
had met with from their brethren on the other 
side of the Atlantic. 
The Chairman : — When I came here to-day 
I was not prepared to make any lengthened 
statement respecting my journeys in North 
America, but as it seems to be the general 
wish that I should say something on this; 
matter, I shall be very pleased to give you an 
outline of what I have been doing over there. 
It is just three months ago since we (my wife 
and I) started for New York. After a fair ' 
passage we landed in that city, where the 
thermometer registered 99°, which seemed a 
very high temperature on coming off the 
ocean. We could not therefore stay in New 
York, but journeyed north up the Hudson 
River to Albany. From there the first estab- 
lishment we visited was that of Messrs. Aspin- 
wall and Treadwell. These gentlemen are in 
business together as hive-manufacturers, 
queen-breeders, and dealers in bees. Their 
trade is not on a very large scale, but they do 
a fair amount of business. We stayed a few 
days with Mr. Aspinwall, who is proprietor of 
the Beekeepers’ Magaziv.e, whom I found a most 
intelligent gentleman, fond of scientific pur- 
suits. I found their appliances are very much 
the same as ours ; and I may here take the 
I opportunity of saying that throughout my 
wanderings in the States and Canada 1 noticed 
| that most of the contrivances in use were 
similar to those adopted by us in England. I 
have been enabled to carry away a few new 
ideas; but I feel justified in remarking that 
we are quite equal to our transatlantic friends 
as regards liive-making and all the appliances 
necessary in beekeeping. That which struck 
me most to the disadvantage of England was 
our deficiency in pasturage. You would be 
perfectly astonished to see the thousands and 
thousands of acres of waste land across the 
water filled with an abundance of honey- 
yielding plants, immense quantities of honey 
being lost owing to the want of bees to collect 
it. After spending a few days with Mr. As- 
pinwall, he took me to see Messrs. Knicker- 
bocker and Lock, the queen-raisers in New 
York State. Mr. Lock is the former editor of 
the American Apiculturist. These gentlemen 
| raise queens in a way very similar to the Alley 
system, that is, by inserting strips of cells, 
and destroying every other egg. They rear 
the queens in the same way, but destroy two 
I eggs for one left, and keep them in very much 
the same way as he does. From there I went 
to see the largest beekeeper in the world. 
Captain Hetherington, who has 2700 hives, 
He has twenty apiaries, situated at distances 
of two or three miles apart, in a radius of 
I twelve miles, so that the greatest distance he 
has to go from home is twelve miles. He and 
his brother manage the whole of these api- 
aries, having several men under them; they 
keep horses and carts, and are hard at work 
all day long and continue till evening. Busi- 
ness is commenced at 5 o’clock in the morning. 
I was there during the hours of business and 
saw all the working. The men go round 
from hive to hive and take off crate after 
crate ; perhaps a hive has three stories or 
sections, which are promptly examined, and 
removed if necessary, and in this way 100 or 
