THE HONEY-BEE IN NEW ZEALAND. 
If you have more pure honey comb than you can sell or 
use yourself, run it out in this way: give two cuts to each 
comb with a sharp knife, so as to slice off the covers of 
every cell. This is in fact uncorking all the bottles in 
which the bees have stored their honey. Then set the 
sliced combs in a sieve or colander to drain, with a vessel 
below to catch the honey as it runs. If you have large 
earthenware pots to store your honey in, it is best to let it 
drain from the seive or colander into this at once: you will 
thus avoid having to pour it from vessel to vessel. 
When all the honey has run from the white combs— 
and almost every drop will drain from them if you cut 
them sufficiently—place the comb in the middle of the 
apiary on some fine day, and the bees will take care that 
none of it is lost. They will extract every atom of honey 
from the wax. 
You’ll be surprised to find the great difference in the 
honey which your bees make at different times of the year. 
The best, perhaps, that ever I tasted, was made in the 
neighbourhood of a number of almond trees while they 
were in full flower. It is one of the few cultivated plants 
which materially affect the quality of the honey, and may 
be profitably grown to a great extent in this country. The 
honey, also, from clover paddocks, is very plentiful, and 
beautifully white. Many native trees, too, are excellent 
honey producers; whilst some few others impart to the 
honey a peculiar, and to some people a disagreeable, 
twang. But there is one peculiarity in a great deal of the 
New Zealand honey, which I must mention, namely, its 
great readiness to crystalize. In some districts whole 
boxes will be found with the honey crystalized in the cells 
in one solid mass, as difficult to cut through as a very solid 
cheese. The white combs filled with this species of honey 
are exquisitely white, and the honey of such good quality 
that it may be eaten quite as a confection. The comb, 
when cut through, shews hardly any appearance of wax; 
it seems one solid mass of sugar; and yet the shape of the 
cells is clearly discernible. 
You can be in no doubt w r hat to do with this sort of 
honey comb. It will kefep any length of time, if the combs 
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