150 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
His season s profits would stand thus : — 
Commenced with two stocks, 12 box hives 
cost, say 14s. 
Swarms sold ... ... ... .£1 15 0 
40-lbs. honey, say at 4d. ... 0 13 4 
i2 8 4 
Deduct from this 14s., leaving dll 14s. 4d. 
profit, and eight stocks of bees, four good, four 
rather weak. 
The beekeeper with frame hives, having an 
equally good season, both for increase and 
honey flow, stands thus at the commence- 
ment : — 
Two stocks of bees. ^ 
Two frame hives, cost 12s. each ... £1 4s. 
As the honey-flow commences he manages 
his bees so that, as they increase in numbers, 
he increases their comb accommodation, and 
so delays early swarming, and keeps the bees 
at work storing honey as long as he can — in 
one hive he puts on section boxes for comb- i 
honey for sale, and the other he extracts 
honey from the outside frames as fast as they 
are filled, and at once returns them to be 
filled again as long as the honey-flow lasts, or 
until the colony swarms. Before the first 
hive swarms, which it does early in November, 
he has taken off 36 1-lb. sections of comb 
honey, which he sells at 10s. per dozen ; total, 
30s. The second hive swarmed about a week 
earlier, but he had already extracted 28-lbs. J 
of honey, worth 6d. per lb. Both stocks 
threw strong swarms. He has had to to buy 
two new hives, costing 24s., as well as a pound 
of comb foundation, costing 2s. Gd., for putting ; 
in the frames of the new hives for these swarms. 
He prefers to have no more swarms from his 
original stocks, and six days after the swarms 
he takes out the frames, and cuts out every 
queen-cell but one (the best and largest) so 
that there shall be only one queen to hatch. 
If he be a wise and advanced beekeeper he will 
put some of the best queen-cells he has cut out 
into cages, and place them in the swarm hive 
to hatch, in case the cell he lias left does not 
turn out a good one. The swarms being sup- 
plied with comb foundations rapidly establish 
themselves, and in three weeks are full of 
honey, and hatching bees. The old stocks 
both reared their queens, but one got lost in 
mating. He discovered this at once, and gave 
them one of the queens hatched in a cage, 
which was accepted ; both stocks laid up honey 
rapidly whilst waiting for the brood of the 
new queen, and by Christmas he took off 20 
more section boxes, and had extracted from 
the other hive 17-lbs. honey. The swarms 
were now overflowing with bees and honey, 
and they each cast a swarm abont the middle 
of January. They came off the same day, and 
he united them, so as only to require one more 
hive costing 12s., with 3s. Cd. for foundation. 
In March he took from his five hives 50-lbs. of 
extracted honey, and 12 1-lb. sections, with 
14 partially filled, which he extracted, and 
kept for next Spring. By the end of April he 
found three of his stocks amply provided for 
the Winter, hut the other two required feeding, 
about 15-lbs. sugar each, costing 7s. 6d. 
Now let us see how he will stand at the end 
of the season. 
Cost of 5 Frame hives 
£2 
10 
0 
Foundation 
0 
G 
0 
An extraetoi', knife. &c. 
2 
10 
0 
Sugar 
0 
7 
6 
£5 
13 
6 
Honey produce ... 
4 
14 
6 
Excess of expenditure over 
receipts 
£0 
19 
10 
But he has five frame hives, which will last 
for many years if painted now and then. He 
has also an extractor, Ac. ; all these are worth 
at least £4 10s., so that our frame hive 
keeper is actually U3 10s. to the good in the 
first year, besides being the possessor of five 
strong colonies of bees, with which to com- 
mence next season. 
If any of the ordinary accidents occur, such 
as a stock or two losing a queen, or disease 
getting among the bees, the frame hive 
keeper is in a far better position than his box 
hive brother ; for he can, at any time, ascer- 
tain the condition of his bees, while, with 
box hives the mischief is usually only dis- 
covered when it is too late, or at least so far 
advanced, as to be difficult to deal with. 
In the second year the frame hive apiary 
will rapidly gain on the box hive one, if both 
have an equally favorable season. 
The chief barrier in the way of adopting 
frame hives is the first outlay, and the acqui- 
sition of the skill to manage them. Whereas, 
with box hives there is seldom any manage- 
ment, and the bees are left to themselves to 
live or die, to collect honey if they can, of 
which they are to be robbed, or else they 
starve. The beekeeper has very little trouble 
and, as a rule, a return in proportion. 
(To be continued.) 
proceedings of Beekeepers’ 
associations. 
QUEENSLAND BEEKEEPERS* ASSOCIATION. 
A meetino of the Beekeepers’ Association 
was held in the National Association’s Booms, 
Elizabeth-street, last Monday. The attend- 
ance was not large, and the chair was taken 
by the vice-president, Mr. B. J. Cribb, 
Messrs. C. Allen and H. W. Clarkson were 
admitted as members of the association. 
Specimens of the Barbadoes Gooseberry,* a 
light-colored, waxy flower, were brought in by 
Mr. Allen ; the members present were unani- 
mous in regarding it as a great favorite with 
* The Botanical name of this plant is /v/edia 
aculeate and is of easy a.. I rapid growth. Ed. 
