472 
JOURNAL OF HORTICULTURE AND COTTAGE GARDENER. 
[ November 20, 188-t. 
The present is a fitting time for studying apiculture, and is also 
most suitable for having appliances prepared for next summer. Bee¬ 
keepers should studj' to bring their apiary to a regular system, by 
which only they can know accurately what will be the requirements 
for another season. Bee-keeping has its limits, and bee-keepers 
cannot go on continually from one year to another increasing their 
stocks by saving condemned bees, by swarming, or division ; besides, 
it is neither commendable nor profitable to be in possession of more 
hives and their appliances one year than is likely to be required in 
another. Neither is it necessary to have all hives alike complete and 
expensive ; winter hives alone should be so. Those for summer use, 
especially where they are required to be moved about, should be 
light and of little compass, with ample means for ventilation, and 
have light yet effectual non-conductors of heat and rain for outside 
coverings, surmounted with a good top covering which admits a 
current of air between it and loose covering. The stand should be 
very low, and in every case there should be a slanting board reaching 
from the ground and attached to the alighting board. 
My own position at present and what I have prepared may furnish 
some information. Circumstances have so placed me that the whole 
of my hives are occupied with bees, a number I do not care about 
increasing, and to simply decrease without making a total clear out 
will not obviate the necessity of making new hives. My occupied 
hives consist of frame and Stewarton, the latter with outside cases, 
and the former all double-cased with zinc-covered roofs and well 
ventilated. The hives wanted for next season will be of but two 
sorts—viz., Stewarton (the original type) and square Stewarton, 
which bars will be fitted with ends for ease of manipulation. The 
upper box wilt have on the front and back top edge a piece of angled 
tin, underneath which will be the lateral slide that can be easily 
regulated to any width. The stand will be simply four posts not 
exceeding 8 inches high, lined fully half way down, and on which 
will rest the floor, 2 inches deep, one side covered with perforated 
zinc, the other with three-eighths wood let into a groove, which 
slides out and in at pleasure, or if desired maybe uppermost. On this 
is a hinged alighting board. Such hives are not only very cheap, 
hut are very useful in apiculture, and give to the bee-keeper great 
control over the hive, whether honey be plentiful or not, as the whole 
of the full honeycomb can be removed without the destruction of 
any empty ones, and hives can be built up from them for stocks ei.her 
with or without bees. 
After the hives the supers require consideration, and of these I 
will make no alteration from what I have long used and found to be 
the most useful. Sections of the American type, unless under 
protest, I will neither make nor use, because this season finds me 
with every super used up, while the sections lie unfilled though 
offered to the bees in proportion to the supers. This is enough. In 
our changeable climate we cannot afford to lose time waiting for 
the bees to enter sections when they take readily to supers. Our 
full-sized supers I shall make as usual, having every bar divisible, 
and the small supers from 6 inches up to 9 inches square by 4 inches 
deep. These find a market readily, and are cheaply and easily 
packed for it, and with far less risk of damage in transit than sections, 
and are besides more easily protected from dust than sections. 
Another sort of section and super combined which I have found 
serviceable, and is in great repute both amongst bee-keepers and 
honey merchants, is composed of three parts only, being minus the 
under bar. These sections may be of any size, according to the wish 
of the bee-keeper, and may be of any number, and used on the hive 
either laterally or by tiering. The top bar is nailed to the ends, 
which are raggled and slotted so as to receive a piece of hoop iron, 
which holds and lifts altogether as if it were one super. These are 
simple, cheap, and easily made, and possess all the properties of the 
common sections, with many other advantages. — Lanarkshire 
Bee-keeper. 
BEE-KEEPING IN QUEENSLAND. 
The following are some extracts from a very interesting letter from 
Mr. John Wilkie, Gourock, who, with his wife and family, sailed for 
Queensland on the 15th March of the present year. Mr. Wilkie is well 
known as an enthusiastic and clever bee-master, and he was one of the 
principals in the starting of the Caledonian Apiarian Society. Before 
leaving this country Mr. Wilkie had almost determined his mind to start 
bee-farming, and he thus relates Visit to Queensland bee-keepers. 
On the 21st July, accompanied by Captain H., I paid a visit to Mr. Carrol, 
Sweet Home Bee Farm, Miltown, Brisbane, which is, though only half an 
hour’s drive from town, beautifully situated in the bush and surrounded 
on all sides by seven or eight varieties of Gum Trees, Peach, Orange, and 
Lemon trees. Vines, &c., all of which are honey-yielding. A Tea tree 
(not that used for domestic purposes) blooms thrice a year, yielding 
honey so plentifully that great quantities can be shaken from the flowers 
into the hand. We introduced ourselves to Mr. Carrol, who we learned 
hailed from merry England some fifteen years ago. Having kept bees at 
home, he saw there was a field for them in the land of his adoption. He 
started, and assisted others to bee-keeping, who with himself found that 
bees and bees alone kept the mill going when all else failed. In other 
words, the bees pulled some of his friends through their difficulties, and 
he knows they will keep him right now. Being shown into his extracting 
room, he instructed us how to use the extractor. There were casks and 
jars of extracted honey ready to be despatched. There also is one of 
Root’s 10-inch foundation machines, which produces beautiful foundation, 
but much thicker than that used at home, necessary to withstand the 
heat; although he had many hundredweights of foundation in stock it 
will be all required for his own use. In his workshop he has an 
ingenious foot-power sawbench, with which he prepares timber for his 
hives. 
“ The apiary contains seventy stocks, composed of Ligurians, crosses, 
and blacks, all in ten-frame wooden hives. The frames, measuring 
17| inches by 8^ inches by seven-eighths of an inch inside measure, 
during the summer months are wrought on the Stewarton principle, 
sometimes to the number of five. From one such hive at one extracting 
he has taken 350 lbs. honey. His usual number in tiers are three, and 
every ten days are subjected to the extractor. The demand being almost 
exclusively for extracted honey until lately, sections are beginning to be 
sought for. American honey has been largely imported, but discovered, 
as it was at home, to be little else than glucose, and with the result that 
people will not purchase it at any price, while the Government has placed 
a prohibitory duty of Id. per lb. on it. Notwithstanding his immense 
productions the demand is far in excess of his supply, his orders being 
for tons and not for lbs. as at home. 
“ Mr. Carrol also imports Cyprian, Syrian, Carniolan, and Ligurian 
queens, which he despatches to all parts of Australia and New Zealand. 
During the last fourteen years he has sent out no less than 2000 stocks, 
exclusive of queens, which he makes a speciality, and at present is 
fostering his best stocks preparatory to queen-rearing. In addition to his 
own he has large consignments of the different races on the way. Mr. 
Carrol is recognised as the principal bee-master not only in Queens¬ 
land, but in the adjoining colonies, and is correspondent to most of the 
colonial papers on bee matters. The farmyard is so replete and astonishing 
that it must necessarily form the subject for another letter, as well as 
what I saw at Messrs. Spry’s Apiary, Flower Dale. In conclu-ion I may 
say, if we have not arrived at the promised land, we had certainly arrived 
at the land flowing with milk and honey.” 
While wishing Mr. Wilkie good speed I hope that he will contribute 
to his favourite Journal his experiences of flowers and bees in the southern 
land.—A Lanarkshire Bee-keeper. 
T 
All coiTespondence should be directed either to “The Editor’ 
or to “ The Publisher.” Letters addressed to Dr. Hogg or 
members of the staff often remain unopened unavoidably. IVe 
request that no one will write privately to anj^ of our correspon¬ 
dents, as doing so subjects them to unjustifiable trouble and 
expense. 
Con-espondents should not mix up on the same sheet questions relat¬ 
ing to Gardening and those on Bee subjects, and should never 
send more than two or three questions at once. All articles in¬ 
tended for insertion should be written on one side of the paper 
only. We cannot reply to questions through the post, and we 
do not undertake to return rejected communications. 
Large Chrysanthemums {E. B .).—The individual you mention as 
“ preaching that such a large bloom was never grown as the Jeanne d’Arc 
figured last week” is rather famed for his hypercritical loquacity. Had 
he measured the blooms in the stands of Mr. Herrin and Mr. Gibson at 
the Westminster Aquarium he would have found several quite as large, 
and some larger. A flower of the same variety was in the back row of 
Mr. Herrin’s stand, and it would not have been there unless it was of 
portly dimensions. It was almost as large as Mr. Molyneux’s bloom, but 
slightly different in shape. 
Picea Pinsapo Stem Bleeding {Cranfordian ).—Without an examination 
it is impossible to determine the cause of the stem bleeding of your 
Picea Pinsapo. Thebarkhas probably sustained some injury, and bleeding 
invariably follows, but it is only serious when proceeding from some 
obstruction. Several cases have come under our notice in which wire 
stays used to support the tree when first planted have been left on so 
long that the bark has swollen over and quite covered the parts around 
the stem. Sometimes the wire is broken off and part of it left buried in 
the stem, proving so serious a check to the flow of sap that much bleed¬ 
ing follows, and the growth above the buried wire is stunted and sickly. 
If the mischief in your case proceeds from such a cause the wire must be 
extracted by carefully cutting away enough bark on one side only of the 
stem to enable you to lay hold of the wire with strong pliers, and so pull 
it out. 
Exhibiting (G. E .).—It is the usual practice at Chrysanthemum and 
