8 AUSTRALASIAN 
from the old country, an operation which was attended with 
_far greater difficulties even forty or fifty years ago than in these 
days of rapid steam navigation. 
INTRODUCTION OF THE BLACK OR GERMAN BEE INTO 
NEW ZEALAND. 
The first bees introduced into New Zealand are said to have 
arrived in the ship Westminster, in the early part of 1840. 
These bees belonged to Lady Hobson, wife of the first Governor. 
and were watehed over on board the vessel by Mr. McElwaine, 
the Governor’s gardener. They were landed at the Bay of 
Islands. Mr. William Mason, who was, at the period above 
mentioned, Government Architect and Inspector of Public 
Works, told me that he distinctly recollected seeing the bees 
on board the ship, and that they were in straw hives, which 
were wrapped in blankets. He believed they remained at the 
Bay when the Government party left to establish the seat of 
government on the Waitemata, now the city of Auckland. 
Dieffenbach, in his “Travels in New Zealand,” mentions 
having seen (in December, 1840) a hive of bees, thriving 
remarkably well, with the Rev. Richard Taylor at Waimate, 
but says “the bees had been introduced into New Zealand 
from New South Wales.” This may be an error. It is not 
improbable that the hives referred to may have been stocked 
with some of Lady Hobson’s bees, but it is also quite possible 
that they may have been brought from New South Wales where 
they had been first introduced in 1822. 
For the introduction of bees into this colony we are also 
indebted to the late Rev. William Charles Cotton, and to 
Mrs. Allom, mother of our respected and esteemed fellow- 
citizen, A. J. Allom, Esq., of Parawai. With regard to 
Mr. Cotton’s success, I quote the following from the British 
Bee Journal of January 1st, 1880 :— 
‘In 1841 Mr. Cotton became chaplain to the late Bishop of New 
Zealand, Dr. Selwyn, with whom he embarked on board the Tomatin 
at Plymouth, on the 30th December of that year. On the voyage out, 
and subsequently, Mr. Cotton rendered the Bishop much assistance in 
translating the Bible into the native tongue. 
*‘Mr, Cotton took with him four stocks of bees; and many 
marvellous stories are told of his mastery over his favourites on ship 
board. He was very successful in the introduction of the cultivation 
