86 
THE AUSTRALIAN BEEKEEPERS JOURNAL. 
fancy that it must be a good thing to find employ- 
ment in the railway department, and so be on the 
other side of the hedge. We may thus be able to 
account for the great number of applications for 
office which are made when the Commissioners 
advertise for an increased staff. 
All jesting apart. Is it not nearly time, Mr. 
Editor, that someone moved in this matter, for 
the further continuance of wholesale pilfering (it is 
far too mild a term) is unbearable. The responsi- 
bility should be cast upon the shoulders of some- 
one. As the matter stands no parcel of fruit, 
game, honey or other goods, which, by the use of 
tools, can be opened and contents broached, is safe, 
and the better and finer the samples the more 
risk of loss. L. T. C, 
THE PRESENT HONEY MARKET IN 
MELBOURNE. 
Market quotations given through the news- 
papers report : — Honey-market dull, 3d. to 3^d. 
Having had occasion to go through the markets 
several times during the present month, I have had 
opportunity of knowing what stocks are on hand, 
and also know from other and various sources 
what stock is being held in the country. There is 
very little first-class honey offering in Melbourne, 
and the apiarest who uses the extractor has little 
fear of realising anything below ^d., at which 
price it will pay him to produce honey. The very 
best sample of box honey procurable is fully j^d. 
lower in value to the same honey extracted. 
Color is bound to count even against flavour in 
many cases. There arc large quantities of dark and 
discoloured honey offering, which has come from 
box hives, the producers of which look upon its 
sale as all profit, and this sample apparently bears 
down the market to the quotation above given ; 
but a good, well-flavoured sample will soon find 
buyers. Unfortunately, a quantity of stock on 
hand is such as should never be sent to market. 
The flavour is simply nauseous. No one would 
desire for a second helping from such a sample. It 
might be good enough to feed back, but, for 
human consumption, it may well be let alone. 
The old leaky kerosene can, while being a handy 
and cheap vehicle, and sometimes the only one 
procurable, needs improving upon. If used for 
honey, great care should be first taken to 
thoroughly cleanse and also securely solder any 
weak or doubtful spots. The apiarist who wishes 
to secure top prices, and come again, had better 
arrange to spend some money in a better and 
handier class of tinware, and also spend some in 
printing. 
The market for comb honey has been somewhat 
uncertain — prices unsteady from two or three 
causes. Some producers having secured honey in 
this form for the first time, and, on a good flow, 
have, through ignorance, sold much below value ; 
the grocers using the occasion to make a cut of the 
price, but this will soon find bottom, and the 
sellers learn wisdom when they look for sections 
to be filled in less favourable seasons, and find the i 
bees won’t oblige. There is another reason which 
should not exist which tends to lower the market : 
Producers of comb honey, who know their busi- 
ness, having a good stock on hand, not willing to 
wait for the market to ease, but push on stock at 
reduced prices to secure the market. There is not 
the slightest need for this. Melbourne will absorb 
all the comb honey that comes into it, and will 
pay a good price for it. but does not want comb 
honey while fruit is in abundance and appetite 
somewhat fastidious at the close ot a long dry 
spell. Sellers should wait for winter and not 
demand to turn stock into prompt cash as soon as 
it is taken off the hives. A beekeeper needs a 
storehouse — and a good one — as much as anything 
else, and needs to watch his market the same as 
the stock breeder. 
From what I know and have seen of the 
markets of this season’s crop, I am sure that no 
beekeeper using the extractor need fear the com- 
petition of the lines quoted in the daily market 
reports. Another thing : Unless the amount pro- 
duced and to be sold amount to tons, there is no 
need why it should come to the Melbourne 
market at all. With a little time and trouble 
spent, a local market may be easily and readily 
made by any one running from ten to forty hives, 
and a price secured which has no deductions by 
loss of weight in leakage or Railway Blight , no 
commission on sales, and no freight paid. 
Yours, See., 
L.T.O 
March 21. 1889. 
THE HONEY SEASON. 
The honey crop of the present season has been 
very varied. In parts of the country very heavy- 
flow early in spring, in others heavy in the 
summer, and in some parts a very heavy yield 
still coming in. The quality of the honey is also 
very varied. 
The western districts of Victoria have had a 
very good flow all through the season, which has 
not come to a close yet. The quality good, a 
heavy dense honey of good flavour and not too 
sweet. 
The north-eastern district has also yielded well, 
principally from red and yellow box, red gum, 
stringy bark, and pepperminl. 
Gipfslnndfor this season has been behind ; 
except in patches -white clover has failed this year 
as a honey producer, on account of want of rain. 
A good quantity of honey has been gathered in 
the south west of Gippsland, but the quality is not 
much to boast about, being strongly flavoured 
from tea-tree, or other flowering shrubs, with 
strong aromatic flavour, and inclined to bitter 
leaving an unpleasant taste in the mouth. 
ffiorasponCtture. 
To the Editor of the Australian Bee-keepers' 
Journal. 
As it is now about six months since I started 
the Apiary for the Victorian Bee Company in the 
Grampians, will you kindly permit me to tell the 
