INTRODUCTION OF BEES TO AUSTRALIA. tf 



bush that in the old George-street Markets, dishes and buckets 

 full of it, mixed with dead and dying bees, dead larvae in all 

 stages, broken comb, and rotten wood, were exposed for sale under 

 the cognomen of bush honey. To look at it was anything but 

 appetising. Better samples were bottled and sold under the name 

 of "prime garden honey." 



About 1872, our bees met with an enemy that bid fair to 

 almost exterminate them — the bee moth put in an appearance, 

 from whence we know not. Hitherto no skill was required in the 

 management of bees that were kept at that time. New swarms 

 were put into a piece of a hollow log, sawn off evenly at both ends, 

 with pieces of stringy -bark nailed over the openings, and the bees 

 had to obtain ingress or egress as best they could. Gin cases, tea 

 chests, or boxes of other descriptions, were preferred, but in the 

 bush at that time these were not always to be obtained. Mani- 

 pulation of these hives was as crude as the grotesquely-made 

 hives. There was 1 no consideration given for the lives of the bees. 

 These early beekeepers knew little or nothing of the importance 

 of the queen bee; they did not understand "no queen, no bees," 

 therefore no honey. It was a general destruction. When the 

 bees were robbed, wax, brood, comb, and queen were all sacrificed 

 for the honey, and the waste of the latter was almost as great in 

 quantity as that obtained. This slovenly way of bee-keeping, 

 combined with the ravages of the bee moth, would have set a 

 limit to the days of bee-keeping in this country had not means 

 been devised to check it. 



