u 



AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



is no doixbt a good deal of truth in both statements, for bees like 

 other animals adapt themselves to climatic changes more readily 

 than members of the vegetable kingdom. In the warm valley of 

 the Hunter River the leather-coloured bee is the favourite. 



Italian drones are far more vigorous than those of the black 

 bee, and as a rule are on the wing much earlier in the day. The 

 virgin queen has also this early rising habit. This habit of the 

 sexes is a gi-eat aid in keeping a good strain unmixed, especially 

 in a district where black drones are numerically weak. Dzierzon 

 was under the impression that where both kinds of drones exist in 

 about equal numbers the Italian queens will usually encounter the 

 Italian drones, because both drones and queens are more active 

 and agile than those of the common bee. 



The reason of the Italian bee again becoming the favorite 

 after the lapse of so many years was without doubt the beauty of 

 its markings and the mildness of its temper, the latter making it 

 the ladies' bee jtar excellence, and the amount of care and attention 

 that has been bestowed upon it has developed traits and charac- 

 teristics that could never have been brought out in the black bee. 

 If the same amount of care and attention be bestowed upon it 

 during the next quarter of a century that has been bestowed upon 

 it during the last, the ideal bee of the future will soon become a 

 reality. 



Apis dorsafa. — This bee is sometimes termed the giant bee of 

 East India. No variety of bees build such slabs of comb as this 

 one. Of ten times under the ledges of rocks, or hanging from the 

 thick branches of trees, combs 6 feet long by 3 feet in width are 

 met with. A. dnrsata frequently appear to build these slabs of 

 wax for the mere fun of the thing, or for the purpose of keeping 

 their 'prenticed hand in practice, which must be accounted as an 

 ladvantage in their utility as wax producers. A. zonata, of the 

 Philippine Islands, is said to be a larger bee than A. dorsata, but 

 it is highly probable that it is a variety of the latter. In con- 

 structing their comb, the cells in which drones are reared do not 

 •appear to differ in size from that of the worker's cell. Mr. Jfrank 

 Benton was the first to give any reliable information in regard to 

 these bees. He visited India in 1880-81, and in the jungles ob- 

 tained colonies by cutting the comb from their original attach- 

 ments. He placed these colonies in frame hives, and permitted 

 them to have free ingress and egress, and they did not desert these 

 enclosed habitations. They were found not to be so ferocious as 

 had been represented. With proper precautions when hived they 



