Jane 13, 1867. ] 



JOUENAL OP HOETICDLTDBB AND COTTAGE GAEDENEB. 



ti.9 



BEES AND BEEKEEPING IN EGYPT. 

 It may be remembered that in No. 278 of " our Journal," 

 when commencing a series of articles upon " The Egyptian 

 Bee," I stated that the distinguished German apiarian Herr 

 Vogel had taken charge of the illustrious little strangers, whose 

 involuntary migi'ation into Europe had been made under the 

 auspices of the Berlin Acclimatisation Society. After succeeding 

 to admiration in multiplying and disseminating his interesting 

 protei/ces, Herr Vogel seems to have been inspired with the 

 desire of making the acijuaiutance of Apis fasciala in its own 

 habitat. This desire he was enabled to gratify during the spring 

 of 1860, and, I have now much pleasure in submitting to the 

 readers of " our Journal" a translation of the very interesting 

 account which ho has given of his apiarian observation during 

 his Egyptian trip. — A Devonshire Bee-keepef.. 



THE EGTPTI.VN BEE. 



The recluse who never moves outside the four walls of his 

 house, or at the farthest goes not beyond the familiar shade of 

 the trees in his own garden, may well believe that the sun shines 

 not on foreign lands, and that the inhabitants of distant coun- 

 tries must perforce dwell in utter darkness ; but the bee-master 

 should at least know from what field and from what flower his 

 bees gather sweet nectar and gaily-tinted pollen, as well as the 

 places from which they fetch water. The reader of our bee 

 Journal may also if he pleases travel in thought through Ger- 

 many, Italy, Poland, Russia, and by land to all the countries 

 of Europe — bv water to America, Asia, and Africa ; to the 

 lands of the Mohammedan and the heathen, and witness how 

 the little bee is everywhere provided for by the beneficent 

 Creator, and how she is fostered by man. 



Let me beg the courteous reader to permit himself to be in 

 thought transported with me through the air and over the blue 

 waters of the Mediterranean to the ancient city of Cairo. But 

 Cairo alone, the unsubdued or rather the invincible, is not, with 

 all her glory and magnificence, sufficient to captivate us, for we 

 are anxious to see the little bee and the Egyptian bee-masters. 

 Hiring donkeys, the driver straightway conducts us to Old 

 Cairo, and to the Arab Soliman, who is gravedigger in the 

 English churchyard. Here accordingly we find the old Arab 

 occupied in the God's-acre under the shade of the tall trees ; 

 but he is not now making a last resting-place in the cool 

 ground for any child of man, but is only closing a bee-hive, 

 into which he has just shaken a swaim of his wards. Our 

 dragoman introduces us as European bee-keepers who are come 

 to sit at the feet of the Egyptian bee-master, and listen to the 

 teachings of Egyptian wisdom. Alas, it is not permitted to us 

 to read in the eyes of the Arabian bee-master the impression 

 which this representation has made upon him. Soliman cer- 

 tainly wears no yash-mak, like the feminine beauties or ugly 

 ones of his land, but has simply a bee-cap drawn over his head. 

 We express to him our surprise at seeing in Old Cairo a bee- 

 cap exactly similar to those we have met with in Europe, when 

 Soliman at once becomes communicative, and relates as follows : 

 — " In the year 1242 • the foreigner Hammerschmidt bought of 

 me a stock of bees, which he took to Europe. In the following 

 year Hammerschmidt came again from IJerlin, a town of the 

 unbelievers in the cold north, to Cairo, and brought me this cap 

 as a present. The inventor of the bee-cap is Togel. a bee- 

 keeper in Europe who received my bees. Neither my father, 

 nor my grandfather, nor great-grandfather knew bee-caps, and 

 formerly I also continually went amongst my bees without a 

 bee-cap. How proud, then, am I to possess the first bee-cap 

 in the land ! How costly is the material of this fabric ! The 

 great Prophet himself could not have worn worthier or better 

 raiment ! The colours of the material and of this band, are 

 they not excellent and ravishing to the eye as a rose that is 

 kissed by the first blush of the dawn? Vogel's friend has 

 washed this fabric with pearls of dew in the morning, and dried 

 it in the evening glow of the heavens ! " 



We miss bearing the farther praises of the bee-cap whilst 

 making the folliwing note in our diary : — 



1. '• In the year ISfiS, the Berlin Acclimatisation Society 

 sent through the photographer Hammerschmidt a bee-cap, 

 which Vogel had furnished, to the Arab Soliman, in Old Cairo. 

 This cap is the first in Egypt." 



We are pleased at the truthfulness of the Arab, who does 

 not extol himself as the inventor of the bee-cap, whilst we 

 pardon his mistake + in ascribing the invention to Vogel. 



In order not to weary the reader with the diffuse and pom- 



Hcgira. 



f Errarc humanum est. 



pons speeches of the old Arab, we merely extract the farther 

 notices from our diary, permitting ourselves only to add some 

 explanatory remarks. 



2. " The ruler of the bees is slender as a palm tree, the male 

 heavy as a crocodile ; the slaves are most like the mother, 

 must work day and night, cleave in love and service to the 

 ruler, and slaughter the males at command. The ruler orders 

 the murder of the males as soon as the flowers are withered in 

 the heat of summer ; the males are unable to defend them- 

 selves in that they are stingless. If the males were to remain 

 alive in the summer they would obtain authority ; but in the 

 bee-community only the mother shall rule." 



The Arab also knows three different kinds of bees — the 

 queen, drones, and workers. He says that the worker-bees 

 may be so attached to the queen because they owe their ex- 

 istence to her. The egg of the bee is not unknown to the 

 Arab bee-master ; he knows that out of it will come a worm, 

 and in time a young bee. 



3. " Bees swarm in Old Cairo in the month of March, when 

 the clover begins to flower. At this time the Arab daily lays 

 his ear on his stocks in order to hear when the old mother-bee 

 begins to 'weep'. When this 'weeping' is heard he counts upon 

 a swarm being pleased to issue the next dr.y. As the queen 

 will then forsake her children and her government to found a 

 new empire, the Arab deems the sounds of lamentation very 

 natural." 



We can scarcely understand this mistake in respect of 

 swarms. Soliman firmly maintains that swarms can be looked 

 for only when the rulers "weep" (pipe or clack). From what 

 we heard, we concluded that the Arab first watches for swarms 

 when a stock has already sent off a prime swarm, and when 

 the young queens in the stock hives pipe and clack. The first 

 prime swarms must therefore certainly fly off, unless he should 

 by accident discover them hanging on a tree. To the question. 

 Whether he did not sometimes have a swarm without the 

 queens having " wept," he answered that then he had either 

 missed hearing the " weeping," or the swarm found was a wild 

 (flown away) one. 



-t. " The swarms are shaken into empty cylinders. In order 

 that the bees may be pleased with their new dwelling, empty 

 and full honeycombs are set up in it. This can be easily done, 

 as all cylinder-hives are of equal width. Each comb must be 

 placed on a forked stick, and by means of this may be firmly 

 fixed, if the length of the stick be the same as the diameter of 

 the hive." 



It is certain that during the past hundred years the Egyp- 

 tians have been able to prevent swarming. Soliman is, in this 

 point of his practice, perfectly Dzierzonian, without, however, 

 knowing Dzierzon's name. That the Arab prevents swarming 

 in order to dry the tears of the ruler of the swarm, is, practi- 

 cally, of no importance whatever. 



5. '■ If a stock swarms, notwithstanding that the queen has 

 not yet ' wept,' the Arab makes an artificial swarm. When 

 the bees have taken flight, he, towards evening, stops the en- 

 trance in the front disc of the cylinder, opens the door be- 

 hind, takes out a portion of the comb with the bees hanging 

 on it, and places it carefully in an empty cylinder. In order 

 not to weaken one stock too much, ho takes combs and bees 

 from two or three hives, and forms his artificial swarm by 

 putting them all together. When the back door is again 

 closed the front entrance is opened, so as to receive into the 

 parent stock, instead of into the artificial swarm, those bees 

 which have collected during the removal of the combs. The 

 Arab thinks that he has then a queen in the new stock, and 

 that otherwise the operation fails. ' When,' says Soliman, 

 ' I do not divide and remove the bees at the right time, the 

 young bees kill their old mother and cast her dead body out 

 of the hive.' " 



Our friend Soliman also understands dividing and transport- 

 ing. He only divides those stocks that have young queens 

 which pipe and clack. He always takes care that he has a 

 young queen in the artificial swarm, because after a queen has 

 been hatched the divided swarm would not have suitable brood 

 for raising a queen, as when a stock pipes and clacks after the 

 first swarm has issued all the brood is already sealed over. 

 That artificial swarms may be made with brood only, passes the 

 comprehension of the Arab, and thinking is not his mi'tier. I 

 doubt not that to this day there are old boys in Germany that 

 know no more of the manner in which a queen is produced 

 than Soliman himself. Some years since a bee-keeper died in 

 this neighbourhood, who never could thoroughly comprehend 

 that it was possible for the bees to raise a queen out of an 



