882 



GLEANINGS IN BEK CULTURE. 



Dec. 15. 



THE POOK SEASONS IN MAETA. 



There are no statistics to give as to liow iiuiiiy 

 iiives then; may be on the whole ishuid. A 

 canon told me tliere might be about lOOO. which 

 in good years may yield an average of 10 lbs. a 

 hive. The season of 1890 secnns to have been a 

 failure. The canon, who possesses some 60 

 hives, which are in his garden on a cape, has 

 liad 4 lbs. of honey from the whole lot. He has 

 spent a good deal of money in transferring his 

 hives into Italian-mad(f hives, and has lost a 

 good many swarms, from moths, dwindling, fer- 

 tile workers, etc., and is now fast ti'ansferring 

 them into the Sandringham hives. He reads 

 Italian bee-papers, and takes every thing for 

 granted that these papers say, and follows the 

 same innovations. He has any amount of 

 queen-excluding zinc, sections, feeders, and so 

 foi'th ; has also bi'ought numbers of queens from 

 Italy, a few Cyprians, but he does not believe 

 in one race stinging more or less than another. 

 Another gentleman very satirically remarked 

 to me, " This part of the "island, where not less 

 than 300 hiv(>s of bees are kept within a radius 

 of a few miles, and no flowers wortii talking 

 about, is just good enough foi' spending one's 

 money in feeding and breeding liees for the 

 pleasure of seeing them flying and working." 

 He. too, had about a dozen colonies in Sandring- 

 ham hives, and is feeding the bees to give them 

 a fair living. A third gentleman, too, an ama- 

 teur, who only looks at the busy creatures, took 

 some honey a year ago, but ultimately had to 

 feed back '• over and above '" what he had pi-e- 

 viously taken, so now he has concluded to let 

 'em alone; and, besides, it was very cruel to 

 take away the honey they had so carefully 

 gathered. The above named are foreigners. 



THE MALTESE BEE-IiEEPER. 



The Maltese bee-keeper is quite a different 

 chap. As superstitious as his Oriental relations, 

 he is as far back in bee-keeping as any one else. 

 The hive is made of earthenware, cylindrical, 

 and costs about 8 pence. Its length is nearly 1.5 

 inches, and diameter about 10. When this is 

 full he puts another cylinder, about 12 inches 

 long, at the back. As a rul(> he takes only the 

 honey which is stored in this prolongation, after 

 having blown some smoke on the bees (the 

 smoker is only bovine which he blows into the 

 hive, as they have no smoking-implement). 

 The more timid bee-keeper wears a veil and 

 gloves, while the expert does not. They trans- 

 poi't the bees on a car, with plenty of straw to 

 prevent jarring too much. The honey-comb is 

 broken up in small pi(>ces, and put into a recep- 

 tacle in a room sheltei-ed from bees and sun. A 

 hole at the bottom allows the honey to flow out. 

 This is I'eceived in another receptacle, of earth- 

 enware, and in this stored away to lind its way 

 into the market. The Maltese honey is sold at 

 (5 or 7 pence a pound, while the Sicilian honey, 

 which is worked into confectionery, bi'ings only 

 half the price. 



Th(^ swarming season is about the month of 

 April; and, according to their notion, "the 

 drones, which they suppose to be hatched out 

 of the queen-cells, compel the swarm to leave 

 the mother hive, and are then eithei' dissipated 

 by the wind or otherwise killed by the bees. 

 Should the bees not kill the drones (which they 

 confound with queens), the swarm is liable to 

 fly off again. The leadei's they call 'flowers' 

 (drone-queens) are not the mothei's. As soon 

 as the swarm issettled they start building comb, 

 and tilling the cells with honey and water. Out 

 of this mixture the young bees issue; but the 

 watei' must be as clear as crystal, otherwise no 

 bees will hatch out." The bees seem to be 

 great swarmers, for they have from three to five 

 swarms per hive, in good seasons. When any 



honey is wanting. Micy feed the bees by putting 

 shallow eartlicnwaic jjlates. filled with honey 

 and syru]). in tiie back |)art of the hive. 



The hornets are also among tlie enemies, al- 

 though it is twenty years since they have been 

 strong enough to destroy any hives. They de- 

 stroy the hornets by simply burning the nests 

 where they And them. The earlv rains of this 

 season have destroyed them altogether. Moths 

 are a great nuisance too; but as the natives 

 keep only a few hives, which are closed by only 

 a flat stone at the back, they can at any time 

 look in, without distuibing the bees. Those I 

 saw were very quiet. We did not meddle with 

 them any more than to look at them and take a 

 few bees out of the foremost. The natives are 

 very much afraid, too, of the "evil eye." Some 

 persons are not allowed to look into the interior 

 at all. as the effect of their looking at them 

 would veiy soon destroy the hive. The death- 

 head moth, too. takes honey, but is killed by 

 the bees as soon as it contrives to enter the hive. 



A barren rock, as many call Malta, it is still 

 wonderful how many vegetables are raised, 

 and, indeed, good ones too. Tliey are very la- 

 borious, those Maltese which have to depend 

 entirely on commerce. It being a well-situated 

 island in the Mediterranean, between Sicily and 

 Africa, it has a very splendid harboi', or, rather, 

 a number of harbors, into wliich a number of 

 steamers are continually going and coming, 

 pilncipally as a coaling station, besides the 

 nuiiiy men-of-war which are either stationed 

 here or call here on their Mediterranean tour. 



AN OED TKADITION CONCEKNING PAtTE AND 

 THE VIPER. 



The Maltese are very religious and supersti- 

 tious. All the country is covered with churches 

 dedicated to as many saints. They always 

 uncover their heads when passing by a church 

 or shrine. The church of St. John, where all 

 the Grand Masters and Knights of the Templans^ 

 are bui'ied, is one of the finest and richest 

 churches I have ever seen. St. Paul has many 

 churches, chapels, grottoes, and bays here, iii 

 commemoration of the great apostle's ship- 

 wreck on the island. There is a curious tradi- 

 tion among the islanders respecting the viper 

 that bit the apostle. They say, " When Paul 

 the apostle was bitten by the viper, and shook 

 it off into the fire without being molested, the 

 inhabitants at once embraced Christianity on 

 that account, and the venomous serpents were 

 changed into harmless ones to this date." It is 

 a fact now. that there are no venomous serpents 

 herein Malta; but I believe there never have 

 been any^ as the island of Sicily is void of them.. 

 They are two blessed islands as regards this; 

 for when we think how many persons are killed 

 in India yearly by serpents, this may be called 

 a very happy place; neveitheless, I am happy 

 to leave it to-day and bid Malta adieu, feeling 

 a little bit with Lo)'d Hyron, who tasted the 

 disagreements of Malta, and very especially, it 

 seems, its (piarantine, as he says in his " Fare- 

 well to Mali a." P. J. Baedensperger. 

 Valletta. Malta. Nov. .5, 1890. 



OUT-APIARIES. 



OVERSTOCKING AN APIARY; HOW MANY BEES 

 CAN WE KEEP IN ONE EOCATION WITH 

 PROFIT? SOME VALUABLE SUGGES- 

 TIONS FROM K. FRANCE. 



This subject has been worked over time and 

 again; still, what do we know about it? lam 

 aware that there is a considerable number who 

 arc thinking of starting an out-apiary the com- 

 ing spi-ing„as their home apiary is becoming- 



