1898. 



THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



677 



their flying at every opportunity, and there was never a time, 

 vfhen they were on the wing, that they were not carrying 

 either pollen or nectar. They did not appear to gather a 

 great deal, but enough to Ifeep them slowly rearing brood. 

 They were, with one exception, the little blaclf bees, and very 

 irritable. The hives would be full to overflowing with bees in 

 March, and swarms issuing ; some seasons earlier or later. 



I should think the best conditions for transferring would 

 be after the close of the long drouth, soon after the summer 

 rains had commenced, as there would be fewer bees, less 

 honey and brood, than at any other season ; the rains would 

 bring forth bloom for the bees to work upon during the win- 

 ter. As an example of the difference in time of blooming of 

 golden-rod in Illinois and Florida, here we find it in Septem- 

 ber ; in Florida I gathered beautiful bloom on Black's Island, 

 in St. Joseph's Bay, in April. 



HONKT CAUSING SICKNESS. 



I think that we need to do a little missionary work along 

 this line. When we hear of persons who cannot eat honey 

 without being sick, take them some pure white clover or other 

 honey, and induce them to try it. I think, with few excep- 

 tions, they will find out that honey no longer makes them sick. 

 It was pollen and bee-bread mixt with honey that disagreed 

 with them. 



Frost has not killed the bloom up to date. 



Peoria Co., III., Oct. 17. 



Importing Apis Dorsata from the Philippines. 



(Reported in the Chicago Tribune of Oct. 19, 1S9S.) 



There is one race inhabiting the Philippines which will be 

 a welcome addition to American citizenship, and will be af- 

 forded every facility and inducement to immigrate to the 

 United States and engage in the skilled labor in which it has 

 no peer. This is the giant East India honey-bee, and an in- 

 vestigation of its work and immense capacity for producing 

 honey and wax has interested the Department of Agriculture 

 in the consideration of an early effort to introduce it into the 

 United States. 



Secretary Wilson said in connection with the proposed 

 importation of these bees to the United States, that a special 

 appropriation would be askt in his coming report to Congress 

 for the investigation of the bees of the world, and a colony of 

 the big Philippine "honey-makers" would be brought to 

 America as soon as the question of their value and the possi- 

 bility of their acclimatization has been fully determined. 

 There will also be an appropriation requested for the study 

 of the agricultural and kindred products of the newly ac- 

 quired territory of the United States, and even under this 

 head the great honey-bees of the East could be introduced by 

 the department to this country. 



To scientists this bee is known as Apis dorsata, a species 

 common throughout the tropical regions of the East, and in 

 the Philippine Islands the largest variety of this species is 

 found. It is nearly one-half larger than our native honey- 

 bee, and builds a comb, heavy with wax and honey, five or six 

 times as large as the ones that are found in American or- 

 chards and forests. 



In addition to the enormous manufacturing capacity of 

 this particular bee, its introduction will have the important 

 effect of securing from some of the richest honey-bearing 

 plants of the United States the sweet juices which now re- 

 main ungathered. The propagation and increase of these 

 plants will also be immeasurably assisted by other services 

 the big bees will render. These extraordinary results will be 

 brought about for the reason that the giant of the East has a 

 tongue nearly twice as long as our native bees. All these lit- 

 tle workers get at the honey in the flowers with their tongues ; 

 but many blossoms have such deep wells that our native bees 

 cannot reach it, and, knowing this through inherited tradi- 

 tion, never try. The principal honey-bearing flower which 

 our native bees find too hard a problem for their limited 

 honey-pumps is red clover. The long tongues of the big 

 Philippine bee would find these clover blossoms a mine of 

 sweetness, and thousands of tons of honey would be yielded 

 up that Is now practically a loss to the world. In return for 

 the honey these bees would find in the red clover their intro- 

 duction to that plant would prove an Inestimable assistance to 

 its reproduction. Bees play a most important part In this 

 operation, carrying as they do the pollen of one flower to 

 another, the fertilizing powder clinging to the limbs and body 

 of the little insect. 



The question of the possibility of acclimatizing these in- 



habitants of the Philippines la the colder latitudes of Amer- 

 ica is not discouraging. The giant bees are found in the 

 mountain regions all through India, and have been seen busily 

 at work at altitudes of 5,000 feet. In the Philippine Islands 

 their colonies are most numerous in the mountains, as the in- 

 defatigable quest of the natives for their honey-combs has 

 driven them to the less thickly inhabited regions. The Filipi- 

 nos find their daily bread a rather easy proposition, but they 

 are fond of honey on the staff of life, and wax is next to gold 

 in its attractions for fortune seekers. 



In the East wax is a principal article of staple commerce, 

 due to the manner in which the clothes worn by the natives 

 are dyed. These cloths, when fresh woven, are covered with 

 a thin layer of wax, leaving exposed the portions which it is 

 desired to dye. The cloth is then soakt in the dye, and the 

 wax which covers and protects the fiber where it has been 

 spread prevents any of the waxt parts from taking up the 

 color. This manner of dying Is so general in the East that 

 there is a tremendous demand for wax at all times. The wax 

 also Is exported in large quantities to Europe for making 

 candles. 



The commercial probabilities of the introduction and in- 

 crease of the giant bees to the United States would princi- 

 pally affect the production of wax. This commodity has risen 

 so greatly in price through the invention of the graphophone, 

 that the manufacturers of wax-goods often have been without 

 material for their product. 



The big bees build their hives on tall forest trees, or on 

 the overhanging ledges of inaccessible cliffs. Branch swarms 

 build near the parent colony, so that In a few years an im- 

 mense bee-settlement often grows up in the forest. To dis- 

 cover one of these is almost certain fortune to a Filipino. In 

 appearance the giant bee is a smoky, glittering, irridescent 

 black, of wasplike figure, with orange bands encircling its 

 body. There have been reports that this bee is most ferocious, 

 and on account of its great size is extremely dangerous, but 

 one of the bee-experts has seen and handled them in their 

 jungle haunts, and be tells a different story. They are such 

 busy and persevering workers, according to his account, that 

 they have lost dexterity with their stinging apparatus, and 

 tho they may alight full of wrath, and with evil intent on 

 human hand or neck, they do not handle their offensive 

 weapon with skill, and it takes them 20 or 30 seconds to get 

 their sting in working order. 



The manufacture of wax by the bees is an interesting 

 commercial problem. Bees secrete wax by eating honey, and 

 as it takes about 15 pounds of honey, worth 10 cents a 

 pound, to make one pound of wax, which will seldom bring 

 more than 25 cents a pound, bee-keepers do not encourage 

 the manufacture of wax by their bees. 



Petitions have been coming in to the Department of Agri- 

 culture for years asking that the Government introduce these 

 giant bees into the United States. Many years ago several 

 individuals tried to get the bees for themselves by sending to 

 the United States Consuls in the East and asking that queen- 

 bees of the desired race be obtained and forwarded to them. 

 No attempt at bringing them here has ever been successful, 

 tho one was prevented only by illness that deprived the bees 

 of the proper care, which he alone could give them, from 

 bringing to the United States a colony of these bees which he 

 captured in the jungle. While he was sick in bed en route to 

 the United States with these bees no one else on the vessel 

 would attend to them, and so they all died. 



OONDUCTBD BT 

 DR. C. O. DULLER. SdARMNGO, ILL. 



[Questions may be mailed to the Bee Journal, or to Dr. Miller dlreot.l 



Spellin;; Reform— The T Super. 



B. F. Onderdonk, referring to page 547, and the spelling 

 reform, writes that of course Editor York " will not strike his 

 flag when a fight is in sight, but all his cohorts would be mast 

 around the mast to defend his colors. Doubtless reform in 

 some words is necessary, and tho I would not like to go back 

 to the orthography of two centuries ago, still I think it hardly 

 fair to make the charge of prejudice against me If I do think 

 much of Editor York's reform spelling looks incongruous. I 

 won't stop the paper, tho." 



Well, Mr. Onderdonk, I'll not insist too strongly on the 



