THE HONEY-BEE IN NEW ZEALAND. 
63 
agreeable summer drink. It may be either used plain or 
made to effervesce by a little soda. 
A cunning housewife, doubtless, would improve on 
many of these receipts ; her main difficulty in supplying 
a family with these beverages will be in straining the 
honey, which runs very slowly when of a thick quality. 
This I think may be obviated by boiling clean honey 
combs in a due proportion of water, and then letting the 
liquor stand till cold, when the wax will have formed on 
the top, and may be taken off. Then proceed as above. 
A less agreeable, thou not less useful, application of 
honey, is in the form of a cough mixture. 
Till a quart bottle three parts full of clarified honey, 
mix well with this a teaspoonful of Ipecacuanha, then 
fill up with sharp vinegar : a spoonful or two of this, 
whenever the cough is troublesome, will have a very 
good effect. 
The “ Times Bee-Master” closes his correspondence 
on Bee Management thus — he says— I have directed 
your attention to bee-keeping, not as a fancy pursuit, or 
as an interesting entomological investigation,, but as a 
practical and real work. Hence I have not discussed a 
variety of toys used as bee-hives, very pretty and very 
tasteful to the eye of a sentimental apiarian, but so 
bothering to the bees that they wish such houses .were 
at the bottom of the sea. Simplicity of structure, direct¬ 
ness of use, and availableness for deprivation of honey, 
and yet preservation of the honey-makers,, ought to be 
the guiding law. Bees don’t like to be paid too many, 
too obsequious, or too patronising attentions. I want, 
however, in this closing letter to turn rny largest hive 
into a pulpit, and to preach a short apiarian homily to 
cottagers, which I know they will, read, and hope they 
will “mark, learn, and inwardly digest.” 
A Sermon on Bees. 
1 . They may carry from the hive to the cottage-hearth 
a lesson of industry. During work the bees are so in¬ 
tensely absorbed in their duty, that they ignoie ^ rei y 
distracting and diverging object and interest. ley 
have learnt well a text their masters would do v oil to 
