THE 
Huetralian Beekeepere’ 
JOURNAL, 
Vol. III.— No. 5.] 
MARCH, 1889. 
[Price 6d. 
(S tutorial. 
HINTS FOR MARCH AND APRIL. 
These two months are often busy ones with 
bees in Australia, as in propitious seasons good 
autumn honey flows are not at all uncommon, and 
in many localities not only the best but often the 
most plentiful surplus is collected. We should be 
on the watch, and well prepared for such a con- 
tingency. Our stocks should be kept up to good 
working strength by feeding if necessary, by unit- 
ing late swarms or weak stocks with stronger ones, 
and supplying queenless colonies, or those with old 
or unprolific queens, with young and vigorous 
ones, not only for the sake of any autumn honey 
that may occur, but also that every stock may 
enter on its winter season well supplied with 
young bees ; for one chief reason of many stocks 
coming out weak and dwindled in the spring is 
the lack of plenty of young bees in the hive when 
the queen diminishes or ceases her laying for the 
winter months. Our experience is that Italians 
are prone to stop laying almost entirely after the 
summer honey flow is over, and many cannot be 
coaxed to start again till the spring, by which 
time a large part of the old bees have died off, 
leaving the hive very weak. Italian Hybrids and 
the Cyprian crosses breed later, and can readily 
be stimulated to recommence late in the season. 
The best plan, however, is to always have young 
queens, that is, queens hatched and mated in 
December, |anuary, or February, to supersede old 
unprolific ones that slacken or cease laying after 
January or February. Care should be taken to 
nave room for autumn storage by providing frames 
of empty comb or supers of sections filled with 
comb, as it is wasteful of energy to keep the bees 
comb-building at this season. A careful beekeeper 
will always have spare combs in frames or to cut 
up for sections, in order to secure all possible 
from an autumn honey harvest. In extracting 
care must be taken not to leave slocks too bare for 
winter, for although late feeding will put stocks in 
possession of plenty of winter food, our experience 
goes to show that those having a plentiful supply 
of sealed honey to begin the winter will come out 
strongest and earliest in the spring. Any cases of 
fine brood must be taken in hand at once, for it is 
almost impossible to build up a colony afresh after 
March unless it should turn out a very favourable 
season, or unless in the favoured districts of the 
warmer parts of Australia where an almost con- 
tinuous honey flow occurs. 
THE MANUFACTURED HONEY 
QUESTION. 
Another failure in the prosecution of honey 
manufacturers has taken place. An officer of the 
Central Board of Health purchased some bogus 
honey at one of the jam factories but it appears 
the bogus bees insisted upon putting a label on 
each bottle before it was taken from the factory ; 
these labels set forth that the “ honey was 
blended to prevent crystalization or thickening.” 
After such a precaution it was almost impossible 
to get a conviction, as the clause in the Health 
Act would not apply unless it was sold or offered 
for sale under the name of honey. However, the 
case was brought before the magistrates at 
Prahran, and expert evidence was given by one or 
two well-known analytical chemists. If the 
newspaper reports be correct, these gentlemen 
must have known as much about honey as they 
do of Julius Caesar's back teeth, for one stated 
that pure honey consisted of 75 per cent of 
glucose (?) instead of 75 per cent, of grape sugar, 
for although glucose is a form of grape sugar, 
grape sugar is not glucose, and pure honey does 
not contain commercial glucose unless it is mixed 
with it by the Bogus bees or adulterators, or fed 
to busy bees by rogues to get them to fill in 
emply combs with it. and so produce that splendid 
article sent to us from America called Catijomian 
Sage Honey. Such miscarriages of justice as the 
late Prahran case will continue to occur whilst the 
prosecutions are got up by people who bring but 
little knowledge and less skill to the work, and 
w hilst the analytical chemists employed as experts 
know so little, as appears in this case, of the con- 
