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Dominion, Volume 21, Issue 83, 6 January 1928, Page 6

With the instincts of an amateur apiarist, a Scot on the North Shore recently watched a large swarm of bees flying high in the air, and seemingly coming from a long distance across the harbour (says the Auckland “Star"). The swarm hovered for a while above his three-eighths of an acre, circled gracefully, and finally settled ou one of the largest trees in his back garden. His delight at the black mass pendant from one of the branches was only equalled when he went out tho following day and looked with atuiabale interest upon the preparations for setting up a hive. Within a week, lie says, a start has been made to gather honey from surrounding back gardens, tho event being something in the nature of a New Year windfall.

During the holiday season the gannet rookery at Cape Kidnappers is proving a popular spot for tourists (says the Napier Telegraph”). A few days ago a Napier motor-car service company ran an excursion to the cape, the car with eight passengers getting well along the beach. Scores of people have, in addition, made the journey by private car, while many of the younger generation go by bicycle. Complaint continues to be made regarding the state of the iinal lap of the track approaching the rookery, and the opinion has bein expressed that the present track .should be made firmer, and a wire or a rope in the form of a hand-rail run along the inside. People visiting the rookery found difficulty in negotiating the J rack <n the return journey and two girls left the track in an effort to make better progress further up the cliff face, with the result that they found themselves in a position of not being able to go forward and being too unnerved to go back.

Stewart Island’s drv snell. which had lasted over five weeks, luckily broke a few days ago (says nn exchange). Many people heaved a sigh of re'ief. as water was badly On (op of the ab!*7nce of ram, the weather for the past month has been so phenomenally hot that even the native trees were showing signs of drooping foliage. Visitors to the island are, of course, delighted with the calm warm days, and the Inlet and Halfmoon Bay are dotted with launches and boats of every description. Small boats are at a premium, and every available dinghy, leaky or otherwise, is. in commission. AA T ith all the boarding houses filled to their capacity and every cottage and private residence filled with friends and relatives, the island is experiencing a remarkably gay season.

Forced from its century-old course by tile massive barrier at Arapuui, the Waikato River, in its impetuous wrath, has torn its way in a raging torrent through the channel sluiced out for it in the plateau hundreds of feet above its former level (says the “Times”). More than that, it has swirled furiously along deviations it has carved But from its original course, and bitten deenly into the soft pumice land on to winch it has been diverted. The turbulent waters racing madly at Arapuni, have flattened out gradually in the distance between the dam site and Hamilton, but have assumed a dirty yellow hue, as if to indicate their spleen at the interference they have suffered. Hamilton’s drinking water is very much discoloured, looking very muddy. This is attributable to the erosion at Arapuni and the thousands of tons of debris disintegrated into minute particles of sediment which have found their way into Hamilton’s water system.

While tho old tunnel. was shut down at Lake Coleridge during tho making of a cross-drive, opportunity was taken to repair cracks by grouting for about seven chains (states the Christchurch “Sun”). This portion of the tunnel goes through sand, and it was feared that the water, finding its way through the cracks in the roof, would wash out the sand, a good deal, causing big cavities, which would be a source of danger through subsidences. However, these cavities were smaller than was thought, and they have now been filled bv liquid cement pumped through the cracks in the tunnel.