AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



731 



which to try and prove its statement in- 

 forms its readers that bees in Australia 

 neglect to store honey on account of our 

 perennial summers. 



Now, I think the above statement is 

 a libel on our bees, and is calculated to 

 impress its readers with a false idea as 

 to the bees and climate of Australia. 



I am not in a position to say when the 

 first bees were brought to Australia. My 

 experience has been wholly in South 

 Australia, and I have been acquainted 

 with bees which are known as the 

 "common black," for 25 years, and not 

 until a few years ago were bees im- 

 ported into this colony, and those first 

 imported were Italians, and were intro- 

 duced with the object of getting red 

 clover fertilized ; but lately they have 

 been imported to improve the strain of 

 bees, but never with the idea suggested 

 by the Phrenological Journal. Why, the 

 black bees will gather honey as well 

 now as they did 30 years ago, without 

 any interference by the scientific api- 

 arist, and until lately they have all been 

 worked in the old box-hive, the bar- 

 frame being only a few yrars old here. 



Our summers are sometimes long, and 

 some kinds of trees bloom in winter, and 

 as our winters are not very severe, as a 

 rule, bees can fly out every day or two, 

 and honey is stored during winter, 

 which goes to prove that the honey- 

 gathering instinct in our bees is as 

 strong in Australia as it is in colder 

 climates. 



I am a bee-keeper, and have 250 

 colonies, and I imported some Italian 

 queens last year with the object of im- 

 proving our common race, but not be- 

 cause our bees refuse to store honey, or 

 that they have forgotten the instinct 

 which rules bees the world over. 



I should not have corrected this error, 

 but people sometimes jump to conclu- 

 sions which are not always right, al- 

 though published by scientific journals. 

 Perhaps the journal in question will 

 make sure of facts before making state- 

 ments in the future. 



Adelaide, South Australia, Sept. 19. 



An Experience with Robbing- 

 Results of the Season. 



Written for the American Bee Journal 

 BY J. E. PRICHARD. 



This has been a fair season for honey 

 in this locality. My bees have all got 

 from 30 to 40 pounds for winter stores 

 and if the weather keeps warm they will 



not need to commence to use it before 

 Christmas, for every rainy day they raid 

 somebody else's apiary. I never knew 

 what robbing was until this fall. One 

 of my colonies was up by daylight this 

 morning, and, being election day, they 

 started in to "elect" more stores, and 

 by 1 o'clock the " the polls were closed," 

 and they had been successful in cleaning 

 out " the other party," and were looking 

 for new worlds to conquer. 



I read in the Bee Journal about the 

 black bees being good only for stinging 

 and robbing; well, I must say my blacks 

 come out on the alighting-board and 

 blush to see their neighbors, the golden- 

 slippered little angels " kukluxing " 

 everything in the shape of an old box- 

 hive in the neighborhood, and carrying 

 home their ill-gotten gains with unblush- 

 ing effrontery, as though they had been 

 on a mission of mercy, and it may be 

 they are. If they will only make a clean 

 job of the old hulks of prehistoric times, 

 mine (only one) included, I will think 

 they have been a blessing in disguise. 



As to their stinging propensities, they 

 can out-sting any hornets or wasps I 

 ever saw. I have been stung more by 

 one colony of the proverbially "gentle 

 little angels" than I ever was with 

 black bees since boyhood, yet I would 

 not give one small nuclei of the beauties 

 for ten of the best box-hives of blacks I 

 ever saw. 



I went by the lady's apiary the other 

 day that I induced to try the new mode 

 last spring, and I stopped to see how 

 much honey she had taken. "Why," 

 she said, " I can't get any. I undertook 

 it, and they routed me. They got under 

 my veil, and in my hair, and I had to 

 run." 



Well, I had a good laugh at her, and 

 then asked her to show me around. The 

 first one we came to was an old box-hive 

 that she had been dosing with fire and 

 brimstone ; of course there was no honey 

 in it, only a few bees, and the balance 

 worms. The next was an 8-frame dove- 

 tail hive. I lifted the cover, and seeing 

 but few bees, I took out the season's 

 crop — 11 filled sections. She seemed 

 pleased with the result, but she said, 

 "Ah, you would not do that with that 

 hive," pointing to the one that had 

 routed her. 



So, feeling a little disposed to be 

 chivalrous, I lifted the cover and looked 

 in ; they were all " at home," and for 

 some unaccountable reason all seemed 

 to be upstairs ; but as I never back out 

 of a tight place, I proceeded to lift them 

 out, and such an uprising of the blacks 



