HONEY AND WAX.

Nelson Examiner and New Zealand Chronicle, Volume II, Issue 53, 11 March 1843, Page 211

HONEY AND WAX.

[From the Gardeners' Gazette.] From the earliest periods, the care of bees has been regarded as a matter of great importance, and their products at the present time are articles of extensive consumption, and add considerably to the commercial traffic of various nations. Throughout Europe the honey-bee engrosses general attention, and it has been exported thence to many colonies in lands where it previously existed not. Some writers, who engage to teach natural history before they have acquired a knowledge of it themselves, tell the world that the hive-bee in the tropic ceases to collect honey, arid that wasp?, which in our country- are subterranean builders, build there in trees. Now it would not be more absurd or untrue to say that children cease to cat at the equator, women cease to talk at the poles, and men get horns at the tropics. If any country has bees that collect no honey, and wasps that never build underground, rely upon it they are not the same species as our hivebees and common wasps. According to Mr. Jefferson, the hive-bee (Apis mellifica) was introduced to America; for though' Marcgrave mentions a species of honey-bee in Brazil, yet, I from his description, it appears to have no sting, and is therefore different from the one found in the United States, which appears to resemble perfectly the European species. The uncivilized natives are also of opinion that bees were originally brought from Europe ; but when, and by whom, none of them can tell. They call them the white-man's fly, and regard their appoach as indicating the encroaching progress of the white settlers. Kalm tells us that the honey-bee cannot live through the winter in Canada ; but Mactaggart assures us that bees thrive very well there : the honey, however, is not of the best quality, owing to ordinary flowering plants not being so plentiful as trees. In winter, the bee-hives are housed in, which protects them against the inclemency of the weather. There are, he says, numbers of bees' nests in the hollow trees in the woods ; but their sweets are not much sought after, except by the bears. It is said that the first planters in New England never saw any bees there ; that the English introduced them to Boston in 1670 ; and that since then they have spread over the whole continent. Nevertheless, a question has been raised as to the specific identity of the European hive-bees and those of certain parts of America ; and a long memoir upon the subject is published in one of the early volumes of the " American Transactions." In New Zealand the honey-bee was not known till lately, when, as I am informed by my brother, Mr. John G. Fennell, its introduction was effected by Mrs. Allom, the wife of the well-known artist Having prepared, with much ingenuity, several hives, with extra coses and perforated zinc tops* in anticipation of a swarming on the voyage, she confided the industrious and valuable little creatures to the care of the Reverend Mr. Saxton, who tended them on their passage to the colony, by the Clifford, one of the New Zealand Company's vessels. In the Sydney Gazette, Of October 18, 1823, it is stated that, during the three weeks previous, " three swarms of young bees had been produced from two hives, the property of Mr. D. Wentworth, purchased by him from Captain Wallace, of the Isabella; and placed on his estate, at Homebush, near Parramatta. The fragrant shrubs and flowers of Australasia are thus proved to be peculiarly congenial to the increase of this insect ; -and we trust that, in a few years, we shall be able to add honey and wax to the other numerous productions of our colony." It is difficult to learn how far northward theae insects have been found in Europe. That they are unknown in Lapland one may infer from Scheffer's statement that the Laplanders cat the bark of the pine-tree, prepared in a certain way, instead of sugar. Hoc comedunt pro rebus saccharo condi/it, are his words, and there can be little doubt that if they had honey they would prefer it, as a better substitute for sugar than any preparation of the pine-bark. From the " Historich Satistisches Gemalde dcs Russischen Reichs " we laarn that the culture of bees is, in Russia, a matter of much greater importance than in most other parts of Europe. It is there a source of existence to many entire communities. Independent of their own domestic consumption of wax, the Russians annually export from 12,000 to 15,000 pounds weight to foreign countries, from the ports of the Baltic alone ; and European Russia supplies nearly the whole of Siberia with honey. Their best honey is that which the bees have extracted from the flowers of the white linden ; and it is gathered in greater abundance in the districts where those trees are plentiful, as on the banks of the Oka and the Don, in White, and Little Russia, in Poland, and in the southern parts of the Oural situated in Europe. The tribes who chiefly devote themselves to the rearing and culture of bees are the Backkirs (who take the lead), Tcheremisses, the Tchouvaches, and the Mechtcheriaks, especially in the government of Kavan and Grenburg. Amongst the first- named tribe, it is no unusual circumstance for an individual to possess a hundred hives of bees, within the limits of his own garden, and'as many as a thousand hives, or hollowed trees of wild bees, in the adjacent forests* annually deriving from them 40 pounds* and sometimes even 100 pounds weight of honey. It is generally supposed that bees compose their honey solely from the sweets which they extract from flowers ; but in the environs of Orenburg there is every reason to believe that they suck blood, flesh, &c. Rytchof, being desirous of ascertaining if bees were really consumers of flesh, placed within a hive a dead lowl, plucked ; it remained untouched by the bees for three or four days, but no sooner did it begin to decay than they eagerly devoured it, leaving nothing but the bones. As Upper Egypt only retains its verdure for four or five months,- and the flowers and harvests are earlier there, the inhabitants of Lower Egypt profit by these moments. They collect the ben of different villages in large boats ; each proprietor trusts to them his hive*, which have a particular mark : when the boot is loaded, the men who have the management of them gradually ascend the river, stopping at every place wfiere they find flowers and verdure. The bees at the break of day quit the ir cells by thousands, and go in quest of the treasures which compose their nectar ; they go and come several times, laden with booty ;

in the evening they return to their habitation, without ever mistaking their dwellings. After travelling three months in this manner on the Nile, the bees, having culled the perfumes of the orange-flowers of the Said, the roses of the Faioum, the jessamines of Arabia, and a variety of other flowers, are brought back to the places they had been carried from, where they now find new riches to partake of. This industry procures the Egyptians delicious honey and bees-w ax in abundance. In France and Piedmont floating rafts of bee-hives may also be seen. " So through the vale* of Loir the beehive* glide, The light raft dropping with the silent tide ; So, till the laughing scenes are lo»t in night, The busy people wing their various flight, Culling unnumber'd sweet* from nameless flowert , That scent the vineyard in its purple houn." Rggcks. Fielder, speaking of the famed honey of the Hyinettus, says that throughout Greece honey is more agreeable and aromatic than in other lands, owing to the heat being moderate, for which reason the juices of the plants are in a more concentrated state. Rennie and some others state that bees-wax is a secretion of the insect, in fact, a strictly animal product : but others think it consists of the collected farina of flowers. [The only bees at present in this settlement are in the possession of Captain Wakefield, and were sent by Dr/ Imlay, from Twofold Bay, early last winter. These little colonists have not been idle, and the flax plant, with our numerous flowering shrubs, supply them with ample food.]