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Bee-Culture at Present: European

Mr. Cummings in his "Adventures in South Africa" tells us that the wild bees there are the same as the domestic bees of England. But this is doubtless because the European bee has been extensively introduced.

Beeswax forms a considerable part of the cargoes of ships trading to the Gold and Ivory coasts and districts of Sierra Leone, and the western shores of Africa.

The European honey-bee was introduced by the Dutch settlers into southern Africa, where it quickly made itself at home, escaping to the woods and colonizing large areas, while in his "Origin of Species" Darwin says: - "In Australia the imported hive-bee is rapidly exterminating the small, stingless native bee." In New Zealand, the West Indies and the United States it has also become a permanent and flourishing resident. In South America, in Cayenne and Surinam, there are reported little black bees with white wings. "They build their nest in the shape of a bagpipe, upon the tops of the highest trees. The honey is very sweet and agreeable, thin, and of a reddish color. From the latter the Indians extract a spirituous liquor of which they are passionately fond; of the wax they make candles."

Bee-Culture at Present From Spix's "Travels in Brazil" we get the following: "Extraordinarily rich is the Sertão in numerous kinds of bees, which nest partly in the trees, partly in the earth. Their products in honey and wax are so important that many Sertanejos support themselves by the business of gathering the same."

A very interesting account of the bees of South America comes from Bates' "Naturalist on the River Amazons," this gifted naturalist and delightful writer having spent many years in South America collecting and observing the various forms of life there. "The Meliponæ in tropical America," he tells us, "take the place of the true Apides, to which the European hivebees belong, and which are here unknown; they are generally much smaller insects than the hive-bees, and have no sting. The M. Fasciculata is about a third shorter than the Apis Mellifica; its colonies are composed of an immense number of individuals. The workers are generally seen collecting pollen in the same way as other bees, but great numbers are employed gathering clay. The rapidity and precision of their movements whilst thus engaged are wonderful. They first scrape the clay with their mandibles; the small portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior paws and passed to the second pair of feet, which in their turn convey them to the large foliated expansions of the hind shanks, which are adapted normally in bees, as every one knows, for the collection of pollen. The middle feet pat the pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in a compact shape as the particles are successively added. "The little hodsmen soon have as much as they can carry, and they then fly off. I was for some time puzzled to know what the bees did with the clay; but I had afterwards plenty of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or perpendicular banks, and the clay is required to build up a wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most kinds of Meliponæ are in this way masons as well as workers in wax and pollen gatherers. One little species, not more than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, kneaded with some viscid substance, outside the entrance to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree within which it is situated. The mouth of the tube is trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of the pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently acting as sentinels. "It is remarkable that none of the American bees have attained that high degree of architectural skill in the construction of their comb which is shown by the European hive-bee. The wax cells of the Meliponæ are generally oblong, showing only an approximation to the hexagonal shape in places where several of them are built in contact. "A hive of the Meliponæ Fasciculatæ, which I saw opened, contained about two quarts of pleasantly-tasted liquid honey. The bees, as already remarked, have no sting, but they bite furiously when their colonies are disturbed. I found fortyfive species of these bees in different parts of the country; the largest was half an inch in length; the smallest were extremely minute, some kinds being not more than onetwelfth of an inch in size. These tiny fellows are often very troublesome in the woods, on account of their familiarity; they settle on one's face and hands, and, in crawling about, get into the eyes and mouth, or up the nostrils." - Another genus of stingless, honey-making bees the Trigona - is found in tropical America as well as in the tropics of Asia and Africa. There are about a hundred species in these two genera, and their combs are very different from those of the hive-bee, containing as they do Bee-Culture at Present waxen reservoirs, sometimes as large as a pigeon's egg, in which the honey is stored. These cells are placed close together and are often black or deep violet in color. The people of Mexico and some parts of South America call these stingless bees "angelitos, " "little angels." The bees are sometimes hived in hollow logs and suspended in the verandas. or Sometimes the hives are made of earthenware and are very ornamental, the hole through which the bees pass in and out being the mouth of a man or a monster whose head is moulded in the clay of which the hive is made. The bottles or cups containing honey are hung around the sides of the hive, but the cells in which the young are raised resemble the honey-comb of our hive-bees.

All of Europe is rich in honey-bees, and in most European countries bee-culture is practised. In Russia the peasants extensively use honey instead of sugar, and the churches make a heavy demand for wax tapers. In former times Poland was particularly famous for its bee-culture, which is still practised to some extent. It is said that in the province of Yekarterinoslaw there are nearly four hives to every inhabitant.

In former times the island of Corsica paid Rome a large annual tribute of wax. The honey of Corsica was bitter, and thus not esteemed, and the wax is said to have been black, but of good quality, and readily whitened by bleaching.

East Friesland, a province of Holland, at the present day has two thousand hives per square mile, while France and Spain teem with bees, and produce much honey.