1 Dec., 1898.] QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. 435 
be fit to send wine across the world without danger. If the vigneron has a 
still, the second dose of hot wine may be omitted, and a quart of spirit used 
instead, but in that case do not match. The writer used the above process for 
upwards of twenty years with success. If the cask is too large to be filled and 
rolled, use a smaller amount of more concentrated solutions, constantly washing 
the interior with a broom through the manhole to extract as much as possible 
the colour and bitterness from the wood. 
REMARKS.. 
Various recipes have been given for curing casks of defects, but where 
sulphuric acid is given the writer from personal experience recommends it. 
It draws taint from wood wonderfully, and is very antiseptic. It is nasty 
stuff to handle, but with ordinary care no harm should happen. Be careful to 
wipe the drip off the bottle when it is poured out, and the clothes will then not 
be burnt. Where steam can be used instead of hot water, it is preferable, but 
few vignerons have the apparatus for this purpose. Where casks or vats are 
too large to admit of the use of the chain to remove dried lees or tartar, they 
must be scraped as clean as possible. 
When casks are very slack from being empty a long time, do not drive up 
the hoops as tight as possible, for this procedure is the cause of much damage 
to the casks and occasionally the loss of all the wine in it. When wine or 
must is put into a dry cask that has had its hoops driven hard up, the wood, 
swelling by absorption of the liquid, puts such an enormous strain on the hoops 
that either the staves bulge inwards or outwards or the hoops fly, and a cask of 
wine is lost. Inthe majority of cases where the heads of casks are seen to 
bulge inwards or outwards, it has been caused by an over-tightening of the 
hoops. Instead of this, the hoops should be tightened only just sufficiently to 
allow the cask to be handled without falling to pieces. Pour into it a little 
boiling water and rinse it round. It will probably all run out in a minute or 
two, but continue the boiling water until the staves have swelled sufficiently to 
hold liquid, and then you can put in your must or wine and be guaranteed 
against flying hoops and bulging staves, as, when they swell with the moisture, 
no extraordinary strain is brought upon the hoops. 
Apiculture. 
AN APIARY FOR WAX ALONE. 
In Jamaica it would seem that beekeepers do not all run their apiaries for 
honey and wax combined, but some for wax alone. In reply to a correspondent, 
the journal of the Jamaica Agricultural Society says:—When the combs are 
out (in the supers) to the full size of the frames, cut them out, extract the 
honey, and melt the comb into wax. In cutting out the combs, leave about an 
inch of comb below the comb-guide at the top bar for the bees to begin on 
again, and repeat as above described as often as the combs are built. As 
soon as the honey flow is over, feed back to the bees all the extracted honey. 
More wax would be digested by the bees to build comb to contain the honey 
fed back, and again the combs could be cut out and melted. It would be a 
very interesting experiment to try with a few colonies how many pounds of 
wax one good colony could produce. _ 
In the next number of the same journal another writer recommends the 
following :—Select two hives (meaning two to work together—100 as 50, and 
so on) which we will call Nos. 1 and 2. Put a super with, of course, a sheet 
of excluder on No.1. Then take combs (leaving one for queen) from No. 2 
and put them in the super, filling the hive with frames having a strip of comb- 
foundation, or starter. Let the combs remain just long enough for the young 
