70 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS JOURNAL. 
apart, quite safe from the ants, which up to the 
present have not found their way to the hives by 
going up to the roof and down the wires ; and if 
they did it will be an easy matter to stop them 
travelling on the wires by painting them with a 
little tar and oil. To prevent the suspended apiary 
from swinging about with the wind, guys of wire 
fasten the frame to the shed posts back and front, 
which keep the apiary quite steady. 
OUR OWN APIARY. 
After a quiet time, with only a moderate income 
of horey, bees are busy again on several varieties 
of eucalyptus. A week or two ago the scarlet 
flowering gum, eucalyptus ficifolia, was in full 
bloom in the gardens and grounds around about 
us. These flowers were dripping with honey, and 
shaking the tree raised a cloud of bees from the 
blossoms from sunrise to sunset, and makes one 
think what a glorious country for honey-gathering 
must be those forests and timbered hills in 
Western Australia where this beautiful euealyptus 
abounds. Following these the manna gums, or 
eucalyptus viminalis, have come into luxuriant 
flower, scenting the air with its odour, and attract- 
ing such numbers of bees as to give one the 
impression of a full swarm on the wing. The 
plentiful rains in January, and early in February, 
produced a second crop of wild flowers in 
meadows and fields, so that bees have found 
pollen in abundance, and breeding has gone on 
vigorously in most of the hives. Several swarms 
have come out since the first of February, and all 
have become well established. 
Foul brood made its appearance in two stocks 
in December, but prompt action, that is, getting 
all the bees and queen into a clean new hive, 
filled with frames with starters only, destroying at 
once all the old frames, brood honey and all, 
feeding freely for a week or so on plain syrup, has 
stopped further progress, and the stocks are now 
strong again, full of healthy brood and honey. 
Our bees consist of pure Italians, Italians with 
with some Cyprian blood, and both kinds crossed 
with black bees. Our best results so far have 
come from the Italian-Cyprian, then the Italian, 
and last the hybrid blacks. One exception in 
favour of a stock of Italian black hybrids must, 
however, be mentioned, which has given so far 
the heaviest return of all. We have made some 
experiments with several forms of hives, the result 
of which will be given in our next. 
THE GRAMPIAN APIARY. 
We gave in our last number Mr. Navean’s 
statement of the value of the native holly of the 
Grampians as a honey plant, remarkable not only 
for its plentiful supply of nectar, but also for the 
surpassing excellence of the honey. We have 
ascertained the botanical name of the shrub is 
grevillea acanlhifolia. It has a leaf exactly like 
the common holly in shape and character, but is 
slightly downy on its under surface. Mr. Naveau 
is convinced it will pay for cultivation as a honey 
producing plant, as it is hardy and quick growing, 
and stands a dry season well. 
(Sstrarts. 
BROOD-CHAMBERS. 
Dr. Tinker has a long article in the American 
Apiculturalist of December last, entitled “ A 
New Management of bees, Brood-chambers, 
Brood-frames,” &c., in which the chief points 
advocated are : — (i.) Keeping the brood -chamber 
for brood solely; (2) The use of honey- boards ; 
(3.) The indulgence of the natural-swarming 
instinct, without allowing increase ; and (4.) The 
production of comb-honey, or extracted in larger 
quantities than by any other method. In working 
this system we are told that a storifying hive, used 
with a queen-excluding honey-board, has great 
advantages over all others — that the invention ot 
the wood and zinc queen -excluding honey-board 
marks an era in the progress of apiculture, and 
goes a long way towards solving the problem of 
“ How to obtain the largest product from our 
bees. 
Let us take the ideas on the above-named 
! points, and compare them with our English 
! notions. (1.) The brood-chamber — Now, the 
small brood-chamber and the storifying system are 
pre-eminently English, and have been in use here 
for generations. Witness the small straw skep, 
with its * super ' mounted above, and the first 
frame-hive which came into general use in this 
country, viz., the Woodbury. Also, above all, 
we have the Stewarton, which is, sui generis, a 
storifying hive, in which the brood is confined to 
two small chambers, together affording about the 
’ capacity Dr. Tinker advises. We are told that 
there must be no room in the brood-chamber fot 
honey that should go into the supers— that such 
i brood -chamber (English 1 body-box ’) should con- 
j tain about 800 square inches of comb — that the 
! one used by Dr. Tinker, containing 830 square 
inches , is formed of a very plain and cheaply- 
made brood -case, which holds eight hanging 
! Langstroth frames, 7 inches deep by 17 inches 
long, outside dimensions, upon which is placed a 
section case containing 24 sections x 4^ x 
7% inches. 
When speaking of * square inches of comb,’ 
cubic inches are evidently intended, since it is 
added that ‘ 50 workers can be reared every 21 
days in each sqttare inch of comb. As each 
: square inch ot surface contains 25 worker cells, 
both surfaces of the comb must be counted in 
order to produce 50 cells to a square inch, or 
rather to two square inches of surface. The 
actual comb surface contained in eight Tinker- 
Langstroth frames is 1720 square inches, or 860 
cubic inches, if we suppose the combs to be one 
, inch thick. It so happens that eight British 
standard frames contain 864 cubic inches of comb, 
supplying a brood nest very little in excess of that 
used by Dr. Tinker. But few English apiarists 
consider 10 standard frames too many for the 
brood-chamber, when the storifying system is 
followed, and, with supers piled on, it is difficult 
to prevent swarming, the whole 10 frames, when 
the queen is young and prolific, being filled with 
brood, so far as it is in the nature of the bees to 
fill them. However contracted the brood 
