AJtril 30,1869.]' 



JOUUNAL OF HOBTICULTUKE AND COTTAGK GARDENRK. 



Ml 



given of bees being considered in any respect as privato pro- 

 perty, but the following passage would seem to indicata that 

 the domestication of the honey-bee is not altogether unknown 

 in the island; — "During the Light, our rest waa much dis- 

 turbed by bees, who stung us several timta, and Mr. Low, 

 with that aoutenesB which never deserts him in ;»11 ([uestions 

 of natural history, pronouuoed them to be the ' tame ' bees, 

 the same as ho had last seen thirteen yeaij ogo among the 

 Senah Dayaks, in Sarawak. About midnight wa were vijitcd 

 by a big fellow, who, our guides assured us, wanted to pilfer ; 

 but we found next morning that he had come to complain of 

 his hives having been plundered. On inquiry, we discovered 

 the man who had done the deed. He was lined three times 

 the value of the damage, aud the amount handed over to (he 

 owner." 



During one of his adventurous expeditions up the river Lim- 

 bing, Mr. St. .lohn found a Prtkdtan named Japer, who accom- 

 panied him, a storehouse of information. He had a thorough 

 faith iu ghosts and spirits, and told of " many an adventure 

 with them ; of the Antus who caused the death of the wax- 

 hunters, by pushing them off the mengiris or tapang tree. 

 When the unfortunate men, from inefficient preparations, as 

 their companions not keeping up a great fire under the trees to 

 stupefy the bees, are so stung as to let go their hold, the 

 natural explanation is never taken ; they fly to their super- 

 stitions. Japer's nephew saw one of these tapang ghosts, aud 

 manat'ed to keep his eye upon him and prevent him pushing 

 hitn off ; he came down without accident, but without any 

 wax. I suggested that he invented the ghost to sxouse his 

 timidity, which Japer thought probable. To-day we passed 

 one of these lofty trees bearing above twenty bees' nests, 

 among them four old ones white with wax.' As the country 

 \3 full of tapaugs, in which alone do the bees build their nests, 

 the stories of the great amount of wax formerly procured in 

 this district may be true. Wliy do the houey bees generally 

 build on one particular tree? Its being the finest in the forest 

 is no good reason ; perhaps there is something enticing in the 

 ba:k. I say ' generally,' because, though I have never seen 

 their nests on other trees, yet I have often come across them 

 in the crevices of rocks." In a subsequent part of his journal 

 of the same expedition, our author says — " I never was in such 

 a country for bees; they everywhere swarm in the most dis- 

 agreeable manner, and ants and other insects are equally nu- 

 merous." When on their return and nearly starved, the party 

 had " a very happy find, for while passing under a fine tapang 

 tree we noticed the remains of a bees' nest scattered about, 

 and every particle was eagerly appropriated. From the marks 

 around it appeared as if a bear had climbed this lofty tree and 

 torn down the nest to be devoured by its young below, as there 

 were numerous tracks of the smaller animals around, but 

 whether the comb had been sucked by the bears or not was 

 very immaterial to our men, who rejoiced in securing the little 

 honey still clinging to it." 



The party appears only once to have fallen foul of a hornet's 

 nest. The encounter and its results are thus described ; — " It 

 was in following the bed of the Rawan that I was stung. 

 Notice was given by the guide to leave the direct path, and we 

 all did ; but I suppose some one disturbed the hornets, as they 

 attacked me with a ferocity that appears incredible ; many flew 

 at me, but two fixed ou my arms and stung me through my 

 double clothing. They poised themselves a moment in the 

 air, and then came on with a rush which it was impossible to 

 avoid. The pain was acute, but I saved ny face. I tuml hd 

 down the steep bank in a moment, and, throwing aside rifle 

 and ammunition, plunged up to my eyes in a pool until the 

 buzzing ceased and the hornets had returned to their nests. 

 Some of my men were also stung; they squeezed a little 

 tobacco juice on the wounds, and they say they felt no farther 

 ineonvenienea. I tried it about an hour afterwards, bnt it did 

 me no good. I had no idea that the sting of this insect was 

 so severe ; my right arm swelled up to double its natural siz» 

 and was acutely painful ; now, on the second day, it is much 

 lass so, but as the swelling continues it is impossible to use it 

 much." 



That wild bees are exceedingly abundant in the forests and 

 jungles of Borneo may be inferred from the foregoing passages, 

 as well as from the numerous references to parllei of nativs 

 •' wax-hunters " which occur in almost every chapter of the 

 work. Although no clue is given by Mr. St. John to tha 

 "identity of the Bornean honey bee, or any information as to 



* More probably n^w ones. — A Dbtonsoibs Bai-KUPBii. 



the manner in which it builds its nest, I am enabled in some 

 measure to supply the deficiency from other sourcos. 



Some half dozen years ago I received from Mr. Charles 

 Darwin, the distinguished naturalist, a few specimens of be«s 

 named Apis teetacea (Smith), together with two pieces of 

 their comb. Although these had been brought by Mr. Alfred 

 K. Wallace, the celebrated traveller and author of " The Malay 

 Archipelago," just published, from the island of Timor in the 

 Eastern Archipelago, I believe them to be the same as those 

 which are indigenous in Borneo, so that there appears little 

 reason to doubt that these are the bees referred to by Mr. St. 

 .Tohn. On examination I found them half as long again as 

 Apis mellitica, and their brood comb proportionably tliicker. 

 Thsy were, in fact, a variety of the magnificent Apis dorsata, 

 which is described as flourishing abundantly throughout the 

 great Indian peninsula, from Cape Comorin to the Himalayas, 

 as well as in Ceylon. 



Mr. Darwin subsequently introduced me to Mr. Wallace, to 

 whom I am indebted for the following particulars ; — " In 

 Borneo and Timor the wax forms an important article of com- 

 merce. The combs hang on the under side of horizontal limbs 

 of lofty trees, often lOU feet from the ground. 



I have seen three together as above, and they are often 

 4 feet in diameter. The natives of Timor I have seen take 

 them. They climb up a tree carrying a smoke torch made of 

 a split creeper bound up in palm leaves, and hanging by a 

 rope from their waist. They cover up their body and hair 

 carefully, but their arms and legs are bare. The smoke di- 

 rected on the comb makes the bees fly off in a cloud as the 

 man approaches. He sweeps off the remainder with his hand 

 and then cuts off the comb with a large knife, and lets it down 

 to his companions below by a thin cord. He is all the time 

 surrounded by a cloud of bees, and though the smoke no doubt 

 partly stupefies them, he must be severely stung. While look- 

 ing on from a considerable distance a few came down and at- 

 tacked me, and I did not get rid of them till I was half a mile 

 from the place and had caught them all, one by one, in my 

 insect-net. The sting is very severe. I should imagine that 

 in Timor the dry season answers to our winter, as the drought 

 is very severe, and much of the foliage is deciduous. Euca- 

 lypti are the most common trees, and their flowers I suspect 

 supply the bees with their honey. In Borneo combs are placed 

 in a somewhat similar manner, perhaps formed by the same 

 species. The only bee I have seen domesticated in the Ejst 

 is one at Malacca ; the natives hang up bamboos and hollow 

 logs for it ; but it is, I believe, not a true Apis, as it makes 

 clusters of large oval cells of black wax." 



I may add that the Timor bee was named Aois testacea on 

 account of its colour, which is very light, and is, in fact, the 

 only point in which it differs from Apis dorsata. When some 

 years ago I compared the specimens in the British Museum, I 

 became impressed with the idea that those which represented 

 Apis testacea were nothing more than newly-hatched and im- 

 mature specimens of Apis dorsata, a' d so strongly did I nrge 

 my views upon Mr. Smith, that I be i ve I almost induce 1 him 

 to doubt the correctness of his own nomenclature, until he was 

 afterwards assured by Mr. Wallace himself that they were 

 really mature and fully-developed adult bees. — A Devohshibe 

 Bbe-keepeb. 



THE BEE-KEEPER'S OPENING SEASON. 

 There is something delightful in the return of spring ! It is 

 the season of resuscitated life among thousands of the animal 

 and vegetable world, and will be hailed at such a time by every 

 apiarian reader of the Journal. So to the apiary we bend our 

 way. A calm sultry day, the 11th of April, like one in July. 

 What a hubbub of excitement and rejoicing ! All my hives are 

 presided over bv Italian or Egyptian queens, though the out- 

 door work is still cariiMl on jhiefly by the hardworking plodding 



