184 AUSTRALIAN BEE LORE AND BEE CULTURE- 



his "Natural History of the Holy Land," says that "In many parts 

 of that country bees are still numerous, and are reared (kept) with 

 great success." Hasselquist describes tl^e inhabitants of Sepphoris 

 as "breeding a great number of bees to their considerable ad- 

 vantage, and with very little trouble. They make their beehives 

 of clay, 4 feet long and half a foot in diameter, as in Egypt. Ten 

 or twelve of these are placed on the bare ground without anything 

 under them. They are covered with a roof which gives them the 

 appearance of dog kennels. In those in which the bees are at work 

 the opening is closed up, leaving only small apertures through 

 which the bees may pass in and out." The people of these coun- 

 tries are as primitive to-day as they were 2,000 years ago. These 

 clay hives are only a modification of those described by other 

 writers as built by bees with clay against the face of rocks, and 

 must be regarded as one of the very first steps to the hive of the 

 present day. Naturally, wood would be considered superior to 

 sun-dl-ied clay. In China, hollow logs and boxes are still in use 

 for bee-keeping. The boxes have no alighting board. Instead 

 thereof numerous half-inch holes are made in the sides of the 

 boxes to imitate knot-holes, &c. Straw and wooden hives of these 

 primitive patterns, with the addition of an alighting-board, must 

 have remained without further development for centuries. The 

 clay tubes, the straw skips, and the box hive were only an im- 

 provement upon the home found by the bees at their own sweet 

 will. They were superior in that they were close at home and the 

 honey could be obtained without searching in the wilds. From 

 all these artificial bee-homes the honey was obtained exactly by 

 the same methods as by the felling of trees or the bursting of 

 rocks. The bees had to be driven from their comb or smothered 

 by sulphur fumes. In either case the destruction of the brood 

 comb (young brood are always the most important part of the in- 

 habitants of a bee community) was inevitable. For the humani- 

 tarian part of bee-keeping nothing was done. It did not appear 

 to enter into their calculations that the destruction of the bees was 

 killing the hen that laid the golden egg. 



EARLY WRITERS ON THE NATURAL HISTORY OF BEES. 



The natural history of the bee had engaged the attention of 

 scientists from before the days of Pliny and Aristotle down to to- 

 day. England has given us Dr. John Hunter and Dr. Bevan ; 

 Switzerland, Bonnet; Holland, Von Swammerdam ; France, Reau- 



