THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE-HIVE. 



185 



swarm of bees that had taken possession of a small cleft in some 

 rocks, my attention being drawn to them by seeing some clustering 

 on a narrow fissure. On closer inspection I found them at work in 

 stopping the crack. The material used was a resinous matter, 

 obtained from the small cones of some trees near by, and sand' 

 thickly intermixed therewith. Some weeks after I revisited the 

 place and found the composition as firmly set as Portland cement. 

 It is said the bees of the Holy Land frequently settle on the face 

 of a rock and construct with mud a dome-like covering around 

 themselves. Here they make their home. The material used is, 

 undoubtedly, the composition I have referred to. The honey seen 

 "dripping from the rock" is from bee-nests so constructed, when 

 such are built where they receive the full force of the noon-day 

 sun which acts upon the resinous wall-material and the delicate 

 virgin comb within. 



From the bee-made constructions named to the clayey sun- 

 dried tubular vessels in use to-day by the barbarous or semi- 

 barbarous tribes of Asia and parts of Africa, is but one degree in 

 the transition from the natural to artificial bee dwellings. These 

 artificial drain-pipe hives for the convenience of handling and 

 robbing were the first steps in the evolution of the hives we now 

 see. The hollow spout of a tree taken possession of by the bees, 

 broken off and removed nearer to man's dwelling in like manner 

 was the prototype of our wood-constructed bar-frame hives of to- 

 day. In the outlaying districts of this State, and in the early 

 days around Sydney, I have frequently seen hollow logs sawn off, 

 pieces of board nailed on either end, with a knot-hole doing duty 

 for an entrance, used for beehives. A knot or swelling of calabash 

 form has been pressed into service for the same use. These semi- 

 natural constructions were the hives used by the first bee-keepers 

 who started the industry of bee-farming. How many centuries 

 lapsed before the rude contrivances named were brought into 

 service we don't know. It was some time between the days of the 

 prophets and the Christian era. About the year a.d. 30, a dis- 

 tinction was made in honey that was got from nature's hives and 

 those artificially constructed. In those early times there was 

 "wild honey," however, obtained from natural sources, and from 

 the term "wild" being then in use, there must have been honey 

 to which some other adjectives were employed, perhaps, "garden," 

 or as our American cousins would say, "tame" honey. 



The method, or the hives in use when honey was designated 

 by qualifying terms have not been handed down to us. Kitto, in 



