14 AUSTRALASIAN 
I have not been able to obtain any information as to the 
introduction of the German bee into South Australia, Victoria, 
or Queensland. Probably the importation may have been made 
from New South Wales or Tasmania, and nct direct from Europe. 
To Mr. C. Fullwood, of Brisbane, I am indebted for much 
information as to the progress of bee-culture in Queensland. 
The following extract from a communication of his in the first 
number of the New Zealand and Australian Bee Journal gives a 
graphic description of bee-culture uader the old regime :— 
‘Some years ago large quantities of bees were kept by farmers and 
others in a very primitive fashion, and the bush resounded with the 
hum of the ‘busy bee.’ Timber getters, wood carters, and aborigines 
frequently secured large quantities of honey from hollow trees ; both 
the black bee and stingless bee, peculiar to Australia, were found 
almost everywhere. Gin cases, tea, or any kind of rough boxes were 
appropriated to bee use, and such is the climate, and the yield of 
honey so regular, that bees appeared to thrive everywhere, and in any 
kind of hive, so long as they had a cover under which to build their 
comb and rear their brood. No skill was demanded in their manage- 
ment. Given a swarm—put it in a box, on a stand, under a-sheet of 
bark ; then look out for swarms in a few weeks; and, after a while, 
turn up the box, cut out some honey, or drive the bees into another 
box to go through the process of building and storing, to be again 
despoiled in like manner. 
“No thought about the destruction of brood, waste of honey and 
wax; no care about the queens. Would not know a queen from a 
drone, or their value in the hive. What matter if a few boxes (stock) 
perish ? Such was the natural increase by swarming that a few losses 
were of no consequence. 
“* Anybody could keep bees who had courage enough to rob them. 
The aborivines knew how to do it. With a tomahawk and fire-stick 
they would attack the ‘ white-fellow sugar bag,’ and driving the bees 
with smoke, deprived them of their honey. ‘ Pettigrew’s old Irishman’ 
was not required here to teach the Australian aborigines how to rob 
the bees by means of smoke. 
“* A few years ago, however, a great change cameover the land. A 
moth, unknown previously, commenced its ravages. The bees suc- 
cumbed before it, and were rapidly swept away. Farmers owning 
from fifty to two hundred stocks lost all. The bees in the bush gave way 
also before the terrible onslaught, leaving the invader all but master 
of the field. Only a very few individuals, by dint of determined 
persevering watchfulness and care, managed to save a few stocks 
mes pee general devastation. 
‘“* Bee-keeping naturally came to be viewed as a very precari 
risky, and unprofitable business ; and, although it has in Tee 
many, there are but two or three persons in the colony who have an 
number of stocks, or who attempt bee-keeping as a means of obtaininyr 
an income.” S 
