m 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
a good supply, and of the best quality. Some 
have planted large fields of buckwheat for their 
bees ; but it does not give as rich a supply, nor as 
attractive a produce in the market as the others. 
Mignonette is also cultivated for the bees ; and 
every year new plants are brought to notice and 
extolled highly. All the blossoms of the forest 
and the field are placed under tribute by the bees, 
and no farmer can go amiss in keeping a few 
colonies. 
LAST YEAR’S DISCOURAGEMENT. 
In many parts of the country last year was a 
great failure among those who depended upon 
bees and honey for their yearly income; but this 
was only a temporary check to the industry which 
is liable to befall in the prosecu'ion of any single 
department belonging to the farm. It may not 
again occur in many years to come, and there is 
no reason for neglecting the important duty of 
gathering so great a crop as that which every 
farm will yield, if bees are kept. 
HELPING THE REES. 
A great success is in the various methods of 
helping the bees in their work. So great has been 
the improvement during the past few years, that 
much of the work which took up the precious 
time of the bees may be done now by machinery, 
and the actual work of gathering the honey be 
left to occupy the bees more continuously. By 
means of the uncapping knife and the extractor, 
the honey is taken from the sheets of comb, and 
the comb replaced for the bees to fill again, saving 
thus the long time necessary for building new 
combs. 
Again, comb foundation for either brood-cells 
or honey surplus is made, and the work of the 
bees is thus directed to the best profit of the bee- 
keeper. This wax foundation is one of the 
greatest and best inventions connected with bee- 
keeping. It enables us to have straight combs of 
honey, in whatever sized frames we may desire, 
and the market is supplied with the beautiful one- 
pound sections which so attract the purchaser. 
It gives us also most perfect control of honey or 
brood production. 
THE PAST AND FUTURE. 
After such a summer in England as the bees 
have passed through, it behoves every beekeeper to 
see that a disastrous season is not followed by an 
utter collapse of his army of workers— workers 
who, unfortunately, have not had the opportunity 
to store either lor their masters or themselves. 
Already we hear of many stocks dying of star- 
vation, and not a few skeppists declare their in- 
tention cf feeding no more, as they have already 
fed all the summer in the hope of a turn for the 
better, and now the bees must go to the wall. 
Of course this is only false economy with sugar at 
present rates. Take, for instance, a common 
skep, well stocked with bees, and hardly an ounce 
of food. Rather than let them perish, suppose we 
give them 15 pounds of syrup, which, at the out- 
side, will cost not more than three shillings. 
With a fair prospect of wintering, the following 
season such stock will be worth at least fifteen 
shillings, without counting its swarm, and almost 
certain crop of honey. Is there any question 
about feeding being a good investment ? 
The oldest bee-keepers do not remember such a 
honeyless season as we have just experienced, and 
it is more than probable that the present genera- 
tion may not see another such. Apiaries of fifty 
to one hundred colonies have not given a surplus 
in total of one hundred pounds ; skeps have been 
‘ taken up ’ by the score, and not half-a-dozen 
pounds of honey have been secured. Many bee- 
keepers have had to feed through the summer, 
while it has been the exception to find some 
favoured locality or apiary where the bees have 
managed to get a living all the time. Such we 
know of where a small surplus has been given, 
and some stocks have even stored themselves for 
winter during the warm spell of weather ex- 
perienced in September. 
The past summer has been remarkable in that 
not a single honey-glut occurred while the main 
crops were in bloom. We have, of course, 
experienced poor seasons, but with the present 
exception we do not ourselves remember when 
there was not at least one honey-glut, whatever 
the prevailing weather may have been. 
There can be no question but that bees will 
be more valuable next season ; neither can there 
be any doubt that in the future honey will com- 
mand a better price than has ruled for the past 
year or two, more particularly as American pro- 
ducers have also to complain of a very short crop. 
It will be remembered that the Americans tried a 
few years back to swamp our honey market, and 
more recently the Canadians attempted to 
establish a demand for their produce. Both 
ventures have failed, not simply because the 
efforts put forth were premature, nor that there 
was no market to supply, but because the pro- 
ducers of neither country were aware of the fact 
that their own home-markets were not, and never 
will be, over-stocked with this article when offered 
in its purest and most attractive forms . — British 
Bee Journal. 
AIDS TO SUCCESS. 
Having regard to our concluding sentence in the 
foregoing article, we must confess that there is 
free scope for honey-producers in this country, 
notwithstanding we are writing at the close of the 
most disastrous season on record. We have 
already shown that prices will improve for 
another year, but the present experience will not 
be lost in other ways. Greater economy will be 
induced, the apiarist will pay more attention to 
breeding of his stock, and will want to find why 
one apiary did fairly well while a hundred others 
were in a starving condition. Was it because of 
any peculiarity in the location, in the surrounding 
crops, in the management, or. what is more than 
likely, in the strain of bees employed ? 
We base our calculations upon the latter, and 
while we consider that the production of honey 
should be a profitable undertaking, we do not 
hesitate to say that success or failure depends 
