MISCELLANEA.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 69, 28 March 1843, Page 2

MISCELLANEA.

Astronomy Extraordinary. A short time ago, a countryman being attracted by hand bills posted on the walls to visit the observatory on the Calton Hill, Edinburgh, expressed a desire to see the moon through the great telescope. He accordingly ascended the steps for this purpose, but when viewing the planet, by some means the front of the glass shifted downwards. Immediately was presented to his view a neighbouring sign board. In amazement he bawled out, " Gude preserve us —wonders will never cease, Edinburgh ale sold in the moon ! ”

HONEY AND WAX. (From the Gardener s 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, and that wasps, 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 eat 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 hive-bees 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, 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 te11.., They call them the white-man’s fly, and regard their approach as indicating the encroaching progress of the white settlers. Kalm tells us that the honeybee 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 so 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 into 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 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 cases 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 hi 9 estate, at Homebush, near Paramatta. The fragrant shrubs and flowers of Australia 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 these insects have been found in Europe. That they are unknown in Lapland one may infer from Scheffer’s statement that the Laplanders eat

the bark of the pine- ti tie, prepared in a eertain way, instead of sugar. Hoc comedunt pro rebus saccharo conditis, 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 des Russischen Reichs, we learn 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 niany 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 Tchouvach.es, and the Mechtclieriaks, 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 fowl, 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 bees of different villages in large boats ; each proprietor trusts to them his hives, which have a particular mark; when the boat is loaded, the men who have the management of them gradually ascend the river, stopping at every place where they find flowers and verdure. The bees at the break of day quit their 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 Egyptions delicious honey and bees’-wax in abundance. In France and Piedmont floating rafts of bee-hives may also be seen.

“ So through the vales of Loir the bee-hives glide, The light raft dropping with the silent tide : So, till the laughing scenes are lost in night, The busy people wing their various flight, Culling unnumber’d sweets from nameless flowers, That scent the vineyard in its purple hours.”— Rogers. Fielder, speaking of the famed honey of the Hymettus, 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. In addition to the foregoing account we insert the following extract, in the hope that we may in time see that industrious and busy little creature the “ Bee” reared in the gardens of the cottager as well as in the gardens of the more wealthy. We are glad to be able to say that Colonol Wakefield and Mrs. Wills already possess some hives. The Cape Bees are much smaller than the English, and appears to be far less irritable, and they work during the whole year. I was informed that they kept the house well supplied with honey, the comb being taken away about eight times in the course of the year, or about every six weeks. The hexagonal form of their cells did not seem to be the result of pressure, and were 11 of the same form both at the top and the sides. In the course of my observations of them, I frequently saw them removing a portion of wax from one part of the comb to another.

A Returned Transport.—At the Waterford assizes, Stephen Nash was arraigned before Chief justice Doherty, for returning from transportation before the term was up. The prisoner pleaded guilty; and added a most impressive and remarkable detail of the “ horrors of transportation.”' He said he was put to work in a dock-yard gang of labourers, and

because he would not join in a plan to rise and escape, he was not sure of his life for a minute —his mind was miserable, and he preferred death to remaining there any longer. He determined to escape at any risk, and he made his way to a vessel by swimming. He told the captain that he ran away from a man-of-war in consequence of which the captain would not take him. He was then backwards and forwards three weeks on the beach, and swimming to the vessel through water that was full of sharks—one day hungry and another day thirsty. The vessel was one mile and three quarters from the shore, and his only food was a musty biscuit and an odd muscle that he found on the beach. At the place where he was at work, if a man was only found with a bit of tobacco in his mouth,- he was taken out, tied under a triangle, and got fifty lashes. “ My lord,” said the prisoner in piteous tones, amidst a great sensation in court, “ Have mercy upon me; I care not for my body, but for my soul; and I would as soon have you at once pass sentence of death upon me as send me again to. New South Wales.” The Judges —“ I really feel most distressed, but I believe I am left no discretion.” Prisoner—“ Oh,- my lord, do not send me back.” The Judge—“ I wish to God that the unhappy people who are putting themselves into circumstances that make it necessary to send them to where you came from, knew what you, and others like you, had to suffer. It always gives me a degree of pain equal to what I feel in pronouncing the capital sentence of death, when it is my duty to send people to that rigorous country. I feel this not alone on account of the pain to their feelings—the anguish of their being torn from their family and country —but on account of the dreadful fate that sentence of transportation is—of the frightful punishment and suffering that awaits them—of which you have had experience. I wish to God they heard you hefe this day, and, taking warning from your statement, would avoid crime in future.” The prisoner was then removed from the bar, still imploring mercy. On the following morning he was brought forward to receive sentence, and in reply to the usual question if he had aught to offer why sentence of death should not be recorded against him, said—“ My Lord, whatever you do with me I do not care, so as you do not send me back; I was miserable there in my mind all the time. Oh, do something for me, my lord !” The Judge—“ The law is peculiar. I have no discretion. The law awards the punishment of death for the crime of which you have been convicted, but I may record it against you in place of pronouncing it here.” The prisoner was then removed.