June 1, 190% 
BEE - CULTURE. 
Advice to Beginners. 
By Isaac Hopkins, Apiarian, in Bulletin 
18 of N.Z. Department of Agriculture, 
(Continued from last Issue.) 
IV. THE APIARY. 
—Water.— 
Bees require a great deal of water 
during the breeding season, therefore a 
Small running stream near at hand is a 
boon; otherwise water can be provided in 
troughs, with floats, or filled with 
pebbles, placed in some shady spot near . 
at hand, 
_ Area of ground for a Bée farm.— 
Half an acre will afford ample space for 
@ good-sized apiary and the necessary 
buildings; but if renting a site, as many 
do, it would be as well to rent an acre, so 
as not to be cramped for room in case of 
__ extending operations. A good substantial 
tattle-proof fence around the site is ab- 
Solutely necessary. 
—Laying out an Apiary.— 
The site for the hives should be as level 
as possible, for convenience of taking 
appliances “and combs to and fro. It 
should be laid down in grass, and be kept 
closely cut, especially near the hives. The 
best arrangement of the hives in every 
respect is in straight rows, with entrances 
facing the north or north-east— never face 
them westward if it can possibly be 
avoided. Occasionally there is a depar- 
ture from this form of arrangement, some ~ 
preferring to place their hives in clusters 
of three or more, with their entrances in 
different directions. I certainly do not 
Approve of the latter method, as it appears 
to me to be very inconvenient in several 
Ways without any compensating advan- 
tages. A glance at the extensive American 
apiaries illustrated in the ‘A BC of Bee- 
Culture’ should convince one that the 
8traight-row system is adopted by the 
Majority of bee-farmers in that coun- 
try, 
A serious mistake is often made in 
placing hives too close togethor, fighting 
and robbing among the bees is much more 
likely to take place under such conditions 
THE AUSTRALIAN GARDENER. 
than when the hives are a suitable dis- 
tance apart. They should be at least 6 ft, 
apart in the rows, and the—rows 8 ft. 
apart. In the Ruakura State Apiary I 
have placed them 8 ft, from centre to 
centre in the rows, and the rows 10 ft, 
from centre to centre, with the hives in 
each row opposite the spaces in the rows 
in front and behind. There is ample 
space to work at any hive without stand- 
ing in the line of flight to or from any 
other hive, and a lawn-mower can be used 
anywhere about the apiary, so that I° 
recommend those distances between the 
hives when laying out an apiary. 
—Shade,— 
Mauy amateur beekeepers imagine that 
hives containing bees need shading, and 
forthwith place them under trees in dense 
shade. No greater mistake could be made 
in bee-culture Bees love sunshine, and, 
if in the hives recommended, they should 
be in the open where they can get all the 
benefit of the sun; summer and winter. 
Though the shade of fruit trees—being 
deciduous—might not. be objectionable, 
there is no need of it. 
painted white, or a light colour, and the 
ventilation from the entrances properly 
attended to, are better out free from all 
obstruction to rapid work. After bees 
have been located in dense shade for a 
while they become very Vicious and diffi- 
cult to handle, and in continuous wet 
weather, and also during the winter, the 
insides of the hives become damp, which 
is injurious to bees, Bees themselves - 
indicate when the ventilation is insuffi- 
cient. When they areseen near the en- 
trance with their heads down and their 
wings vibrating—understood as ‘fanning’ 
—they need more ventilation, and it 
should be given by enlarging the en- 
trances. 
--Flat Covers.— 
T consider these an abomination, and 
they should not be tolerated in the 
apiary. They twist and warp, require 
‘ shade boards’ over them, and lumps of 
rock -to keep. the--shade-boards. from. 
blowing off, and altogether form the most 
unsightly and inconvenient fit-out, as 
covers it is possible to imagine, An 
apiary that otherwise would 
have a picturesque appearance 
is transformed into an ugly bee-yard by 
such covers. Independent of their 
appearance, flat covers prevent such a free 
circulation of air as is obtained under the 
gable covers, There isa dead air space 
The hives, if 
25 
between the gable cover and the bees: 
which tends to keep the hive cool, and no 
_board or other shade is needed. Whether 
the flat covers are adopted on economical 
grounds I do not know, but I am sur- 
prised at any one using them, for if the 
gable covers cost four times as much I 
would have them in preference to the flat 
ones. 
—Apiary Buildings.— 
An extracting-house, honey-room, and 
workshop or store-room are absolutely 
needed in a properly furnished apiary. 
They can be all under one roof or in one - 
building. and need not be very extensive 
but should provide ample room for doing 
all the work of extracting, tinning the 
honey, &c., and storing spare hives and 
combs during the winter. I have been 
surprised when on my rounds to see the 
cramped, makeshift places at most of the 
apiaries doing duty for extracting-house, 
store-room &c. I have only only seen 
‘one or two apiaries out of all I have 
visited that had anything approaching a ~ 
decént extracting-house. If carrying on 
any other business than bee-farming, I 
-expect the selfsame people would think it 
necessary to provide themselves with a 
suitable building, but they do not seem 
to realise the inconvenience and loss they 
sustain through not having suitable 
accomodation for carrying on their work. 
However, in time I hope to convince all 
bee-farmers in this colony that it will pay 
them to carry out their work on proper 
lines, 
(To be continued.) 
Honey Paste for Labels. 
It frequently happens that small labels 
on tins fail to adhere when dry. To 
completely overcome the difficulty, an 
American bee-keeper, who tried all kinds 
of paste for sticking labels on tin cans 
and buckets, conceived the idea of mixing 
honey with the paste, and this proved a 
perfect success, the labels sticking tightly 
to the cans after drying. To make the 
paste, mix dextrine and vinegar to the 
consistency to suit, then add about 2 ozs, 
of honey.to-the pint of paste. Don’t 
make the mistake of putting too much 
’ honey in, or the labels will have a greasy 
appearance, and will not dry right. It 
requires more honey in a dry atmosphere 
than in a wet one. Such paste will keep 
in either a warm or cold climate. Other 
pastes might do if a label is used which 
- will go clear around the tin and overlap a 
little, but they will not hold a small 
label. : 
—‘Queensland Agricultural Journal’. 
