TA? QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. {1 Fes., 1898. 
Apiculture. 
BEEKEEPING. 
Norwiristanprno the low price of bar-frame hives, and the simplicity of their 
construction, we yet continually meet with the old familiar gin-case doing duty 
as a hive. The Langstroth hive should have long since displaced these old- 
fashioned contrivances. With it, bee-keeping becomes a pleasant, scientific, 
paying pursuit. And this brings us to the question of instruction in apicul- 
ture. In the United States and in Canada, the business is as systematically 
taught as any other rural industry. It is taught as ascience. There is an 
association in England known as the British Beekeepers’ Association, which 
grants certificates to proficient students on their passing a regular examina- 
tion in apiculture. Queensland is the paradise of the honey bee. In former 
days, and indeed even now, timber-getters, fencers, farmers, and, in fact, all 
bush settlers, supplied themselves lavishly with honey from trees which they 
felled in the course of their business. ‘This was not the honey of the little 
native stingless bee, but that of the European brown bee. We have seen as 
much as six large buckets of honey taken from a single hollow tree. This 
honey was worth in Brisbane ls. per ]b. At one time when the aboriginals 
were more numerous in the Southern districts than they are now, it was 
customary to lend some natives a crosscut saw and an axe, and to provide them 
with a quarter-cask of a capacity of 25 gallons. This they would fill in a 
couple of days at a charge of £1. Many settlers made a large profit out of 
the transaction. This crudely extracted honey, however, would to-day com- 
mand a very poor price, as the bulk of it was very dark and mixed with many 
impurities. The modus operand: was to track bees to a tree, which was then 
felled. The hollow portion containing the colony would usually split open, and 
the angry swarm issuing forth was at once subdued by a fire of green bushes 
which emitted a dense smoke, under cover of which the bee-hunters enlarged 
the opening, and transferred the comb to buckets. The honey was then 
extracted by squeezing ‘the comb (including larve, bee-bread, &c.) through 
mosquito net. The wax was usually thrown away. The bush still holds 
countless swarms of bees, but very little is now donein the way of collecting 
it. It is easier and more profitable to make use of frame hives and to cultivate 
the Italian bee. The average quantity of honey per hive per annum may be 
set down at 50 Ib., and it sells wholesale at from 2d. to 23d. per lb. Comb 
honey in 1-lb. sections was sold in London by Mr. F. Chambers, of Laidley, 
at 5d. per lb. An offer of £2 per ewt. was not accepted. The quotation for 
good extracted honey in the Produce Markets Review (London) is £2 10s. per 
ewt. for English honey, and 7s. for 7-lb. jars. California honey in jars is 
quoted at 8s. per 7 lb. Pure beeswax averages 1s. 9d. per lb. in the English 
market, and the finest bleached wax 2s. 6d. per lb. Jamaica honey brings 
£1 14s. per ewt. in London. It is said that Australian honey is not to the 
taste of the British consumer, owing to its reputed Eucalyptus flavour; but 
this is stated by Queensland beekeepers to be pure imagination. Our bees 
prefer to gather honey in the sweet-scented maize-fields and in the flower 
gardens to wandering off into the bush in search of Eucalyptus blooms. 
Besides, the time during which the Eucalyptus is in flower is of very short 
duration. Wattle blossoms are frequented by bees, but, as the wattle is not a 
Eucalypt, there can be no unpleasant flavour from this source. Beekeepers 
would do well to sow patches of lavender. On the Lower Rhone, in France, 
there are large fields of lavender, and the farmers’ bees are taken at so much 
per hive on flat boats to gather stores of honey from these fields during the 
spring and summer, when they are returned to the owners, together with full 
hives of deliciously fragrant honey. 
