THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS’ JOURNAL. 
laments the inevitable death of the bee that stings 
him He encourages by various means in his 
power the increase of individuals in the hive, well 
knowing that only by keeping his “ colonies'* 
strong in numbers can they, like nations, hold 
their own against enemies. The modern bee- 
keeper breeds his queens as does the stock-owner 
his “ duchesses” and “ dukes,” and, as the queen’s 
value is solely according to her prolificness, unless 
her Royal Highness proves herself equal tc pro- 
ducing 2000 eggs per diem during the height of 
the season she has her head nipped off as remorse- 
lessly as was that of Mary Queen of Scots by her 
rival Elizabeth. It may astonish the uninitiated 
to learn that the life ot a worker bee during the 
busy season is only a brief six weeks ; not but that 
it would live longer if it took things easy, which 
it will not do, its anxiety for the future being too 
great, and like the majority of mankind it wears 
itself out in preparing against evils which 
never arise. Through incessant work, roaming 
over the land in search of flowers, its wings get 
weather-worn ; then some day a storm overtakes 
it and beats it to the ground as it is labouring to 
return home with a heavy load ; the ants then 
think it is their turn, and the poor bee never gets 
to its hive again ; also birds easily nip up a 
heavily-laden bee slowly flying homeward. There 
is no bird so destructive to bees as the wood- 
swallow. I do not mean the ordinary swallow, 
anil martin, but that family of birds called Artamidce, 
or wood-swallows, a family peculiar to Australia. 
The common Queensland representative is the 
A. cinereus. and the reader can know that he sees 
this bird if he note a group of from six to twenty 
gray birds with black cheeks and white bellies 
sitting close together on the dead branch of a tree, 
and every now and again one of them flying oft, 
making a dive, nipping up some unfortunate in- 
sect, and returning to its perch. I have shot forty 
to fifty of these wood-swallows this spring, every 
one of which has had its crop full of bees. The 
crop holds twenty bees, and then the bird cries 
“Enough,” and rests on the branch awaiting 
digestion. Observation showed me that the birds 
will take three or four such meals a day — that is, 
say, sixty or eighty bees. This colony of lorty or 
fifty loeated themselves cn a tall tree above my 
apiary, and for some weeks 1 did not interfere 
with them, for I like birds about a home garden. 
However, at last things got too serious for the 
bees ; indeed, the birds would simply have de- 
stroyed the apiary; so I shot them. The real 
bee-eater (Aftrops ornatus) also will rapidly deci 
mate an apiary situated near where these birds are 
numerous. This bee-eater is a summer visitant, 
and is partial to sandy poor country, for it nests in 
a hole burrowed out of a sandhill. It can be 
known by its beautiful shape, elegant flight, green- 
blue colour, and the two long extended feathers in 
the tail of the cock bird. It is a pity that such a 
lovely creation should be so destructive to so in- 
dustrious and useful an insect as the bee. 
/Estival apiary is the property of Mr. /Eneas 
Walker, Redland. Mr. Walker is an instance of 
the man of education becoming so enamoured of a 
hobby as to almost neglect everything else. There 
are many such men connected with bee-keeping, 
i •> 
both in Australia and the Old and New World, 
for bee-keeping is a fascinating pursuit. It is a 
pity that it is not more profitable, for, whatever 
may have been the case a few years ago, the solid 
fact now is that it is easy enough to produce 
honey, but it is very hard to sell it, even at any 
price, remunerative or not. Like most bee-men, 
Mr. Walker is his own carpenter. Of course he 
adopts the modern hive with its interchangeable 
frames of comb. The size of hive is the Lang- 
stroth, now almost universal. By way of paren- 
thesis I would here say that I have two makes of 
hives in my small apiary of twenty-five colonies, 
one the Langstroth, and the other the “ Ameri- 
can,” 12 x 12 inside measurement, and I always 
get better results from the latter. In all there are 
1 8o colonies at /Estival, but a considerable number 
of these are nuclei — that is. small colonies of two 
or three frames of young bees and larva taken 
from a strong colony and allotted a pure Italian 
queen, for the sale of such nuclei and queens is a 
speciality Mr. Walker goes in for more than the 
production of honey. He is a regular importer of 
Italian queens from Italy, and is daily expecting a 
consignment of eight. Queen-rearing is therefore 
a speciality of Mr. Walker’s. Now the trouble of 
the queen-rearer is that, when there are many 
hives in the apiary, the virgin queen, who on the 
third or fourth day of her existence flies abroad on 
her bridal tour, a young giddy creature, excited 
and nervous regarding the consummation of her 
desires, may not sufficiently note which hive she 
has left, and upon return may enter the w r rongone, 
with the certain consequence of being stung to 
death. Mr. Walker’s observations showed him 
that it is the angle the face of the hive presents 
which is the chief point impressed upon the bee 
when marking which is its own home. “ You 
may.” he told me, “ move a colony a few feet to 
either side, or baekwards or forwards, and the 
out-flying bees will not be puzzled to recognise 
their home ; but only turn the face of the hive a 
quarter turn round, say from facing north to north- 
east, then the out-flying bees will be for a time 
completely nonplussed.” He therefore designed 
his apiary on such a plan that not one hive fronts 
exactly the same point of the compass as another. 
The total number of hives is 280. and this is quite 
enough for any one locality, for the range a bee 
can fly over seldom exceeds three miles, and honey 
often gets very scarce on such a limited area. 
When bees are impelled to fly further to search 
for honey the losses that occur on the journey are 
very great. It is better therefore for a bee-keeper 
to divide his apiaries than to have too many colo- 
nies at one place. 
Each of Mr. Walker’s hives is placed on a 
neatly-cemented floor raised 2in. above the 
ground. This floor is made to do duty as 
bottom-board, and the entrance V is shaped in 
it just as in the bottom-board of the Langstroth. 
1 here are advantages in this cementing, for no 
weeds grow, it is damp-proof, clean, and does not 
rot. neither can ants cat it. 
The evening that I visited /Estival Mr. Walker 
had just mastered one of those extraordinary cir- 
cumstances which now and again surprise the bee- 
keeper. The day had been close and hot, especi- 
