2 AUSTRALASIAN BEE MANUAL 



the Northern nations the use of honey became with 

 time more and more a matter of necessity, much of 

 their fermented liquors being prepared from it, and 

 the more northern the positions, and the more severe 

 the winter seasons, the more essential it became 

 to domesticate the bees, or use artificial means 

 for preserving them during the winter months. 

 Since the middle of the seventeenth century much 

 attention has been given to the natural history of the 

 bee, and among those who made it their special study 

 were Von Swammerdam, Maraldi, Reaumur, Lepele- 

 tier and Latreille, Bonnet, Linnseus, Dr. John Hunter 

 and Dr. Bevan ; but it is to the researches and dis- 

 coveries of Huber and Dzierzon that we are chiefly 

 indebted for that knowledge of the physiology of the 

 honey-bee which has led to those great practical 

 improvements in its management which may be said 

 to constitute the 



MODERN ART OF BEE-KEEPING. 



This may be dated from early in the second half of 

 the nineteenth century, when the movable frame hive 

 in a practicable form was introduced by the Rev. L. L. 

 Langstroth, though it was nearly twenty years after 

 before the industry was thoroughly established on 

 commercial lines. Subsequent to the introduction of 

 the modern hive, the invention of the honey extractor, 

 of comb-foundation, and a number of ingenious imple- 

 ments and appliances, have led to a complete revolution 

 in the practice of bee-keeping, and helped to raise it 

 to the rank of an important national industry, and 

 which is now being fostered by the Governments of 

 nearly all civilised countries. 



INTRODUCTION OF BEES INTO AUSTRALASIA. 



None of the countries of the New World, of North 

 or South America, or of Australasia, were found, when 

 first discovered, to possess any variety of the true 

 honey-bee {Apis mellifica) ; a necessary preliminary, 



