PRACTICAL BEE-KEEPING.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5700, 20 October 1896, Page 3

PRACTICAL BEE-KEEPING.

[By Expert.] i (Speci&lly written for the " Canterbury '• Times.") 1 Although the keeping of bees as a source of income, of 3tudy, and of pleasure, is on record from the earliest period of history, it is necessary before it can be advocated as a rural industry, that those who do so advocate it shall prove that it is profitable to those who engage in it. The fine, glowing picture, so often drawn by writers, of hives which give an^ annual return of some hundreds of pounds of honey, to secure -which it is only necessary to procure a hive and putifc in some out-of-the-way, corner of the garden, is reprehensible and misleading. Thaifcbees are profitable, and wiLli give a fair, return on the outlay and time spent in looking after them there is no question), provided the f district is suitable. New Zealand as a whole may be correctly described as a country equal to any country in the world for the establishment of apicnltnre as a rural industry, yet there 1 are localities where it would be a simple waste of money to establish an apiary. Dii Ting the past winter I have been asked kvaxifvise several young people whetiher there was a reasonable probability, if they devoted themselves to apiculture, that they wouM b© able to make a fair living at it, and' it is Because there may be some among the readers of "this column who are exercised on the same question, that I make it the subject- o£ one of our first chats this seasoni.