1 May, 1899.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 367 
£170,000. New South Wales possesses 41,900 hives, yielding 1,378,000 lb. of 
honey and 31,800 lb. of wax. In Queensland there are 19,178 hives, yielding 
an average of 48 lb. per hive. Some 60,000 lb. have been exported in a single 
year (1892), but exports have been very much reduced of late. In some 
districts, such as Killarney, on the Darling Downs, Rockhampton, in the Central 
District, and Brisbane, in the Southern, the averages per hive were respectively 
94 1b., 94 1b., and 65 lb., whilst at Maroochy the average per hive was 62 lb., 
Nerang, Logan, and Cahoolture showing the poorest result—viz., 34 lb., 36 1b., 
and 44, 1b. In Western Australia, the production of honey has not yet met 
the requirements for home consumption. The Western Australian honey is 
reported upon by Mr. R. Helms, Biologist to the Department of Agriculture, 
as equal to the exceptionally noted samples of the world, and superior to the 
ayerage produced in the other Australian colonies, yet honey in bottles and 
tins is imported to the value of over £3000 per annum. 
South Australia in the year 1896-97 had 17,553 hives, which yielded 
898,358 lb. of honey. But in the following year there was a decrease of 
7,861 hives, the agricultural statistics showing only 9,692 hives, with a corres- 
ponding decrease in yield, only 155,665 lb. of honey being produced. Wehave -- 
no statistics as to the present production of honey and wax in Victoria. 
The profits of bee-keeping in this colony as compared with the profits 
made in Great Britain by British apiculturists, are widely different. A 
cottager who keeps half-a-dozen hives, yielding an ayerage of 50 |b. of honey 
each, can sell the produce at ls. per lb. Thus the six hives bring in a yearly 
sum of £15, far more than enough to pay rent and taxes.. In Queensland a 
farmer who possesses afew hives will not obtain half that price for his honey, 
still what he does make is nearly all profit, and in addition to the value of the 
bees as honey producers, they are valuable aids to the fruit-grower in assisting 
to fertilise the blossoms. The wax is not to be forgotten as a commercial 
product. It is, however, reckoned that to produce 1 Jb. of wax from 8 to 10 lb. 
of honey are sacrificed. 
Now a few words about ripening honey, and we cannot do better than to 
quote from the utterances of Canadian beekeepers as expressed at a meeting of 
the Ontario Beekeepers’ Association held in December, 1898, in the city of 
Hamilton. One of the questions raised at this meeting was the adulteration 
of honey. One speaker says:—“ If you go into the stores of Ottawa, fall after 
fall, you find that the honey put upon the market by local men there is largely 
put up in pickle bottles and corked, and all you have to do is to turn that bottle 
upside down to see that it is exceedingly thin and there is a large percentage 
of water in it; and when the consumer puts that upon the table the result is 
that he is not pleased with the honey as he should be. Many are not aware 
as to what the trouble is, and the result is that the consumption of honey 
is curtailed by putting such an article upon the market. These men who put 
their honey upon the market before it is properly ripened are simply feeding 
and living upon the good reputation which the better article has gained through- 
out the Dominion. The price of honey is reduced by putting such an article 
upon the market, for it costs more and is a greater expense to produce an 
article with a heavy specific gravity.” 
Another says :—‘‘ Some races of bees will not give heavy honey, and how are 
we to get over this difficulty? As far as the percentage of water in our honey 
is concerned, I am afraid that we will have to kill a lot of our bees—and 
perhaps it is better that we should kill them. I find such a difference in 
stocks of bees sitting alongside of each other, feeding in the same field, and, we 
suppose, from the same food. One gives a heavy, smooth, oily production, 
and the other is a very thin, watery production. One will keep and the other 
will not. The watery honey has just as fine a flavour as the other, but it 
deteriorates. It is rather a difficult matter for us to get over.” 
Mr. Shutt, chemist at the Dominion Experimental Farm, Ottawa, was 
asked for an opinion on the subject, and said: “ From what I remember of tha 
subject, however, the English analysts have said that the percentage of water 
