1921 



AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL 



231 



May. From now till then, the bees 

 will indulge in the rosemary flowers, 

 which abound in all Spain. 



The beauty of the Alhambra, the 

 red building where Aisha, the mother 

 of the king, lived, can hardly be ap- 

 preciated by the present generation. 

 Up in the garden were the apiaries 

 which furnished the exquisite honey 

 of rosemary. Moslems never drink 

 any fermented liquors, but "pure 

 honey, given directly from Allah" to 

 wise people, as the Coran says in its 

 .ird chapter, was largely used at 

 Court. 



The Moorish-Spaniards thought so 

 much of their bees and of their honey, 

 without which they could not imag- 

 ine a delicate dish, than on their ex- 

 peditions to the newly-discovered 

 Continent of America, they caiTied 

 bees along in their caravels. So the 

 ancestors of the bees of the United 

 States and West Indies were brought 

 from Spain, and it was through the 

 ports of Cartagena and Malaga that 

 they were carried through their long 

 journey, by sail. The Moors and 

 Neo-Spaniards must have been great 

 experts, to can-y bees with them at a 

 time when neither wire-cloth nor any- 

 thing equivalent to it was known, to 

 close up the hives. 



In Northern Spain, progress is 

 much slower than in the South, on ac- 

 count of the commerce of the latter 

 with sea-faring nations. The} old 

 Islamitic or Arabian hives are still 

 in use all through Navarre and the 

 Basque countries. In the South, their 

 colonies are either in jars or in alfa- 

 wicker baskets, set upright, the Euro- 

 pean fashion. The Moorish, or rather 

 the Oriental fashion, was to keep the 

 hives in horizontal position, 10 inches 

 in height, by about 32 inches in 

 length. I have met with these hives 

 all over Cyprus, Palestine and Egypt, 

 through North Africa and some parts 

 of Spain. This fashion is Islamitic, 

 as the bees were and are considered 

 sacred, and honey was to be taken 

 away only from the end, using a lit- 

 tle smoke to drive away the bees, but 

 not destroying them with sulphur, 

 which is the Northern fashion. Al- 

 though the Spaniards are now Chris- 

 tian, in the sense of keeping Sunday 

 instead of Friday, which is the sa- 

 cred day of Islam, they have inhei-- 

 ited the Moslem respect for apicul- 

 ture and agriculture in general. The 

 names of many towns and villages, 

 and especially of rivers, are of Arab 

 origin, and they have the flat-roofed 

 houses and cactus hedges around 

 the villages. They draw water from 

 the wells with the Arabian wheel. 



The orange gardens along the plain 

 of the Guadamar give plenty of bee- 

 fodder in April, when the trees are 

 white with the strongly scented flow- 

 ers of the Hesperides trees. 



The South Spaniards distinguish 

 two kinds of bees: the smaller ones 

 are commonly called "accarrago 

 billadas"; they are very active and 

 gather pollen and honey much faster 

 than the larger kind; they are per- 

 haps called after an Arab term "El 

 Karagoz," which means "circus 

 player," on account of their quick 

 ways. They have a pretty orange- 



yellow band on the first ring of the 

 abdomen, but so small is it that it is 

 hardly visible. They are quite ag- 

 gressive. 



I stopped at a village called 

 "Muchemiel," and thought that its 

 name must be derived fi-om the 

 French "Mouche a miel," or "honey 

 fly." They laughed at my suggestion, 

 although their word for honey is "la 

 miel," feminine; while in French it 

 is "le miel," masculine.^ But I ob- 

 tained what I Wanted; I saw their 

 larger bees, which ai-e of the same 

 size as the Southern French bee, but 

 won't gather honey sa fast as the 

 "accaragos." They take honey from 

 them by smoking them with a roll of 

 cloth made of sack or burlap, lighted 

 on the end. In the summer they look 

 for queen-cells, and if they find any, 

 they cut out the part of the comb 

 upon which they hang and insert it 

 in a new hive or "colmena," which is 

 placed on the spot occupied by the old 

 stock. Thus Rodriguez, the owner of 

 the apiary visited, told me he man- 

 aged his bees, for he had "no time to 

 i-un after swarms." But he believed 

 that they had a "king" to lead them 

 out at swarming time, but at other 

 times the king reigns in tranquility." 



They melt their honey combs by 

 sun heat, and afterwards sell the wax 

 to "wax workers." 



Wax is used for purposes which are 

 peculiar to that country. In a church 

 near Alicante is kept the authentic 

 veil with which St. Veronica wiped 

 the face of Christ as he was taken to 

 Calvary. The Church is therefore 

 called "Santa Fax, ' Holy Face. Ail- 

 ing people come there to pray for a 

 cure and, when their prayers ai-e 

 granted, they donate to the church a 

 wax representation of the part of 

 limb or of body which has been cured. 

 This is made of pui-e beeswax; a 

 hand, a limb, a face, etc. So bees- 

 wax brings a good price for this pur- 

 pose, especially as wax candles are 

 also offered at the same time, on ac- 

 count of their sweet odor when burn- 

 ing. 



"The bees," said Rodriguez, "are 

 better chemists than men; they 

 gather the remedies for all diseases. 



in all kinds of flowers and offer them 

 to human beings." 



On the feathery palm trees at 

 Elche, how many tons of sweets are 

 gathered, by our good little friends, 

 who wisely bring home the wonderful 

 drug, liked by children and by grown 

 people as well ! 



I am now gleaning information 

 among the Algerians and may go 

 among Saharian bees. If so, I will let 

 you hear. But I must hurry, for my 

 own bees will soon claim me, north 

 of the blue Mediterranean. 



Ph. J. Baldensperger. 



PRONUNCIATION 



By Arthur C. Miller 

 Don't shy. This is a bee article, 

 as you will find out if you will read it, 

 and perchance it may help you. 



Once upon a time, there was a good 

 and learned man who was so exer- 

 cised by the mixture of terms applied 

 to bee culture and the confusion and 

 loss which arose therefrom, that he 

 compiled a dictionai-y expressly for 

 beekeepers and for those of you who 

 never knew it — and the appearances 

 are that few have seen it and fewer 

 own it, let me call your attention to 

 the Dictionary of Apiculture by Dr. 

 John Phin, and while I am about it, 

 I will append a few additions and 

 comments caused by more recent oc- 

 cui-rences. 



A dictionary, as you should know, 

 contains not only a list of the words 

 and their meaning, but also their 

 pronunciations; but to prove that 

 most of you don't know, just try to 

 get the rank and file of the boys to 

 pronounce and define "Nuclei." First 

 they will call it nuclee. nucle, nuclay 

 and if they want to refer to a flock 

 of them they herd them by calling 

 them nuclees, nucleusses, and as 

 many more calls as you will find in 

 a flock of blue jays. And you will 

 find many of the boys will pronounce 

 it by saying "a small colony." By 

 the way, what is a colony? Our good 

 English cousins pronounce it a Stock, 

 but we pronounce it all the way from 

 Colony to Nucleus, Swarm, Stock, 

 Hive, Skep, Gum, and if we have been 

 floored by disease we wind up by 



The .Mhambra, Oanada, Spain. There is a swarm ol bees at the angle of the building beyond 



the fountain. 



