Tm AMERICAN 



*^ ^^ ^h 



PICULTURIST, 



A Journal Devoted, to Practical Beekeeping. 



VOL. IX. 



JULY, 1891. 



No. 7. 



FOREIGN NOTES. 



ARE BEES NATIVKS OF A WAliM CLIMATE? 



One of the mistakes of modern bee- 

 keepers is the saying, that bees are na- 

 tives of a warm chmate. Who was the 

 first one to say so, I do not know, but 

 nearly every day we can hear or read 

 this fable here in the United States as 

 well as in the old country, but I have 

 never seen any proof for it. This ques- 

 tion is important because a number of 

 winter theories are based on this, so it 

 will be of interest to look the matter 

 over. 



If we take into consideration the 

 present geographical extension of the 

 honey-bee {Apis mellifica), we see that 

 this bee nowhere in a tropic climate is 

 native ; where we find it, we know it is 

 imported by man. In tropic climates 

 we find some other species of bees. 

 This may prove very little, but it is strik- 

 ing if we see that in such countries the 

 honey bee now is not native at all. 

 . We know that Germany was a cold 

 and rough country before she got in 

 communication with (Greece and Roman 

 civilization. The oldest notice from 

 Germany about bees we receive from 

 Pythias, living at the time of Alexander 

 the Great (about 330 B. C). 



He says that amber merchants 

 found honey on the northern coast of 

 Germany. Later we read in Pliniiis 

 (Hist. Nat. IX, 18), that after the bat- 

 tle of Arbalo in northwestern Germany 

 (about 12 B. C.) a bee-swarm alighted 

 in the camp of the Romans. Herodotus 

 (at 440 B. C.) says that north of the 

 Danube river no invasion into that 



country was possible on account of the 

 great number of honey bees. It may 

 be said, nevertlieless, that the bees may 

 have emigrated there from a warmer 

 climate. But we see that the honey- 

 bees of that time must be especially 

 fitted for this rough climate, if we take 

 into consideration that the old Germans 

 hardly knew anything of scientific win- 

 tering, of a pollen theory or any other 

 theory. I am sure those old forefathers 

 of ours were bee hunters and under- 

 stood not much more than to cut a bee 

 tree, to eat the honey, to make meat out 

 of it, and were masters in drin'-cing it. 



But we can prove that the honey bee 

 was in this country many thousands of 

 years before men were there. Near 

 Peningen, a small village in Baden, Ger- 

 many, is found a petrified honey-bee. 

 The rock in which it was found belongs 

 to the Miocene, the youngest part of the 

 Tertiary formation. No trace of a hu- 

 man being is found before the Diluvian, 

 so it is sure and sufficient proof that bees 

 were natives of Germany long before 

 man. This petrified bee was found about 

 thirty years ago. 



Besides this we have some other 

 proofs in the habits and anatomy of the 

 bee that hardly any other animal is more 

 specially fitted to stand a severe winter. 

 While a single bee is hardly able to raise 

 the temperature of its body about one 

 degree over that of the surrounding air, 

 we see that a colony of bees by a tem- 

 perature of 20° or 10° F. outside can 

 keep up 60° or 70° F. or more inside of 

 the cluster. To make this possible the 

 main winter food (honey) is already pre- 



(93) 



