THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
superiority and extolling their virtues, and making 
little of their vices, appears now to have given up 
that race and “ gone in ” for the now fashionable 
Carniolan and the well proved Ital an queens, 
and dates his recent advertisements from Laiback 
Carniola, Austria. I am not aware of any 
Carniolans having been tried in Australia. It is 
claimed for this race that they are extremely 
gentle, build comb as white as black bees (for it is 
well known that comb of the yellow races, 
Cyprians, Egyptians and Italians is always a deep 
yellow colour, and never looks so delicate and 
clean as that built by black bees), are good 
workers, defend their hives well, but are a little 
too fond of swarming. Good workers that are 
gentle are the bees we want, and it is certainly 
worth while to try them in Australia, although it 
is hard to conceive that any varieties can beat the 
best strains of Italian, now common in the 
colonies, more especially the darker or brown 
Ligurian and its first crosses. This seems the bee 
of the future of Australia. The brighter yellow 
varieties, so far as our experience goes, appear to 
approach nearer the Cyprian in character— excel- 
lent workers, hardy, energetic, but nervous, easily 
excited, and very prone to swarming. 
The best Italians we know are those bred by 
Mr. Bonney, of Adelaide, at the Parramatta apiary 
near Sydney, and "by Mr. Fiebig of Kangaroo 
Island, all of which we have proved thoroughly, 
and although we admire the beautiful bright 
yellow strain, we prefer those well marked but of a 
more dingy or browner hue. We hear Mr. 
Fiebig "has not done so well in his queen rearing 
venture at Kangaroo Island as he deserved to do, 
but sincerely wish him more success this season 
than the last. We hope to hear that some of our 
enterprising queen breeders have imported some 
Carniolans, so that their fitness for our climate 
may be fairly tested. 
It is quite possible our colleague, lilt Hopkins, 
of the Matamata apiary, in Auckland, New 
Zealand, may have already imported some of this 
variety, for he keeps New Zealand well to the fore 
in apicultural enterprise, and has, by persistent 
efforts, given a great impetus to the beekeeping 
industry in that colony, by re-starting the bee- 
keepers’ Journal and re-establishing a Beekeepers 
Association. 
HINTS FOR THE MONTH OF 
FEBRUARY. 
February is often a critical month for beekeepers 
in Australia, for in most localities the spring and 
summer honey harvest are over, and the autumn 
onenot commenced. It is necessary, therefore, to 
examine stocks and, if short of stores, to feed 
freely so as not to let them fall oft, and thus fail 
to make most of the autumn harvest. See that 
the queens are all right ; re-queen stocks that 
have lost their queen and whose queen is getting 
too old. Look carefully for any appearance of 
foul brood, for it is almost sure to plainly shew 
itself this month if it has got into the apiary. 
Take immediate steps to stamp it out either by 
total destruction of bees, combs, hives and all, or 
by the method of giving them a new hive and 
frames with starters only, and feeding freely, so 
as to keep the bees busy comb building before the 
queen lays any more eggs. 
Sections that are full and not already removed 
should now be taken out of the supers and the 
partly filled ones moved to fill the vacancies, 
filling up the outside spaces with new sections 
with starters in. Those who are extracting should 
now be careful not to go too far or they will stop 
breeding. Supers with frames should be re- 
moved and honey extracted, for if allowed to 
remain it gets too thick to throw out of the combs. 
Take care your bees can always get plenty of 
water near the hives. Swarms are not ur, frequent 
in January and February, but none but strong 
first swarms should be established so late in the 
season, and no second swarms should be permitted. 
If they do come off arrange to unite with other 
swarms or weak stocks as soon as possible, so 
that there is time to strengthen before the autumn is 
over. Great care is now necessary lest robbing 
commences, if honey is scarce. Opening a hive, 
or spilling a little feed, dropping honey or comb 
about or putting a feeder outside a hive is very 
likely to start robbing, and once started it is very 
difficult to stop until some stocks are ruined. Too 
much care can scarcely be taken to avoid any 
cause of robbing ; and all work in which honey 
is likely to be dropped in ever so small a quantity 
should be done indoors, well away from the 
apiary. 
Many of our readers have enquired as to the 
best method of taking supers of sections or frames 
off the body of the hive, most of them having 
experienced great difficulty owing to connecting 
combs between tops of frames and bottoms of 
sections. The best mode of removing a super 
will depend on its form, and whether there is a 
honey board a nd whether it is a super with 
frames or with a crate of sections. We find this a 
good way of proceeding. After driving the bees 
down by smoke or, better, putting a carbolized 
cloth over the sections, we insert a broad flat 
chisel between super and body at back of hive, and 
gently prize them apart sufficiently to see if the 
brood frames are lifting with the super arrange- 
ments ; if they are, put a little wedge to keep the 
super raised, and then with the chisel prize the 
frames one by one down from their attachment to 
the super, when it can generally be lifted clearly off. 
A clean bottom board should be ready to place 
the super on at once, so that no honey is dropped 
about, and the hive itself quickly covered, in case 
of robbing commencing. The carbolized cloth is 
a capital aid in this work, as it keeps down the 
bees and keeps off robbers ; at the same time it 
does not give any taste to the honey-comb while 
smoke does. 
Uhtorian itkiluTpivs’ ^ssnriation 
An ordinary meeting of the Association was 
held on Monday evening. November . Ten 
members present. Mr. Ellery (president) in the 
chair. Mr. Ellery reported that the space at the 
Exhibition set apart for “Bees at work” in 
