10 AUSTRALASIAN 
New Zealand Government representative, to whom much 
praise is due. This consignment, owing to the method of 
packing, having been so successful, Messrs. Hopkins and Clark, 
of the Parawai Apiary, took steps to procure some colonies, 
and two were received in due course from Ventura County, 
California. These, too, were received in splendid condition, 
thanks again to the care taken of them by Captain Cargill. 
Following upon this I obtained from America two other con- 
signments, in all twenty nuclei and two full colonies. An 
event of considerable importance in the history of bee-keeping 
in New Zealand was the first successful importation of queens 
direct from Italy. After some correspondence with Mr. Full 
wood, of Brisbane, I decided to give the matter a trial, and 
the result was that four out of eight queens shipped at Naples 
by Mr. Chas. Bianconcini on 10th of November, 1883, arrived 
in good condition at the Matamata Apiary on the 11th of 
January, 1884. Another shipment was made later in the same 
year, when six out of twelve queens arrived alive. Since the 
first importations numbers of Italian queens have been reared 
and distributed over the colony ; fresh importations have been 
made by other parties, and the greater number of New Zealand 
apiaries are now being Italianised. These bees flourish splen- 
didly in this country, and will, I am quite sure, eventually 
replace with profit the German or common black bee. A full 
account of the Ligurian bee is given in another chapter. 
IMPROVED SYSTEM OF BEE-KEEPING IN NEW ZEALAND. 
Till within the last five or six years bee-keeping here was, 
with a few exceptions, in a very backward state. The hives 
in general use were composed of old gin cases, candle boxes, 
and in fact any wooden material in the shape of a case that 
was handy to the bee-keeper when his colonies happened to 
swarm. As arule, no preparations were made for the swarm- 
ing season, and it was not until the swarm was in the air that 
the need of a spare hive was realised. These boxes in some 
cases have been so neglected that they have actually fallen to 
pieces through age, and the bees left exposed to the weather, 
The sulphur pit has, I am sorry to say, not been unknown 
here, and it is in use even at the present day. In a German 
work on bees the following epitaph is given, which, as 
Langstroth remarks, might be properly placed over every pit 
