6 



to adopt a more modern and scientific system the industry of bee-keeping in Jamaica will sttU iu 

 general remain stagnant, and all but un-remunerative, as it has been for years past. 



(i) The common plan for removing the honey from the hive is quite barbarous ; the bees are 

 made to leave the hive by the use of smoke. Many of them get singed and burnt by the careless 

 way in which the smoke is applied, and the flavour of the honey is spoiled ; the combs are then scooped 

 out, without regard to the different grades of honey which a hive always contains. These combs are 

 then placed upon a sieve and chopped up ; the product being caught in a receptacle below. 



(c) The honey thus obtained is a mixture of bee bread, — or pollen — the juices of young bees (or 

 larvae) and exuviae and excreta, — which if known of by the general public, they would be more careful 

 to ascertain from what source they get their honey. Indeed I have been informed from good au- 

 thority, that a shipment of honey of this kind was once made from here, and on arrival at its destin- 

 ation it was found to be of such bad quality that it was sold to a firm of blacking manufacturers at the 

 rate of 6d per gallon. The bees thus deprived of all their honey combs are again returned to the 

 empty hive to get on as best they may. 



(d) A much better plan would be to make several holes in the top of the hive and place upon it 

 another box of somewhat smaller dimensions, in the roof of which there has been previously fixed a 

 piece of comb as an attraction for the bees to ascend. As the hive increases in wealth and population 

 and the |honey season advances the bees will soon turn their attention to the upper box or "super" 

 and as their instincts always lead them to store their honey in the upper part of the hive it will be 

 speedily filled with dainty white combs which will contain the most beautiful honey. It will be seen 

 that by this arrangement not alone is the store-house kept separate from the nursery, or lower box, 

 with its pollen, brood-foods, and larvae and exuviaa which are always associated with the honey when 

 the nursery and larder are not separate; but on the improved plan the honey can be removed withmt 

 disturbing the hive proper, and if the "super" be again prepared as mentioned above and replaced, the 

 operation may be performed two or three times during the honey season, and perhaps at each removal 

 as much as a gallon of good honey will be obtained, making, say three gallons in all, worth 2/6 or 3/ 

 per gallon. One stock will therefore yield between 7/6 and 9/. 



(e) If this be compared with the usual method, the fable about the goose and the golden eggs may. 

 be applied, for by the old plan we got, say, half as much honey, and that of a very inferior quality, and 

 at the same time stand a chance of losing our bees by depriving them of all their honey at one time. 



(f.) Of course the results obtained by the above improved method are not to be compared with 

 those of a still more complicated and indeed highly scientific plan, known as the movable comb hive 

 system, where as much as 1 cwt. of honey per hive is not at all infrequently obtained. But as this 

 plan would require a rather more lengthy explanation than space at command will permit, and as at 

 the same time the method and apparatus would be somewhat beyond the means of the general Jamai- 

 can peasant Bee-keeper, — it may as well be left out of view — for the present at least. 



(ff) Not alone is the present system of management open to vast improvement; but the type of 

 bee itself may also be improved. For instance, suppose we have six hives of bees, tha results from 

 each may be very diflferent ; at the beginning of the honey season we place upon each a " super", two 

 of our six stocks start ahead with a will, and fill their "supers" as fast as they are replaced, the other 

 four perhaps refuse to enter, or after all only partially fill their " supers," then they may each swarm 

 two or three times thus furnishing us with an increase from which we hope to have great results in 

 the future ; but our apiary has not been increased with a type of bee whose instincts lead them to 

 amass honey, far in excess of their needs, but with a type whose nature impels them to start new 

 colonies, and thus this type will be strongly impressed upon the bee life of the future in our apiary. The 

 peculiarity will be reversed with the two good stocks which on account of constantly being deprived 

 of their storage honey, have had no encouragement to swarm, and as the object of bee-keeping is to 

 get honey and not swarms, the Bee-keeper should endeavour to restrict the multiplication of undesira* 

 ble and small strains, and seek the slower increase of those which give the best honey results. 



(h.) This may be perhaps one cause of the unremunerativeness of our native Jamaican bees at 

 compared with the imported strains, which I and other more advanced Bee-keepers have obtained 

 from other countries (America, England and Italy) where bees have been carefully kept for genera- 

 tions. 



(i.) It may be well to mention that bees play a great part in the production of crops. Nature 

 seems to have placed honey in the flowers, not so much for supplying food for bees and other insects, 

 but that fertilisation of plants may be accomplished. 



The bee in flying from flower to flower gets dusted with pollen from the anthers or male organi 

 of blossoms, and in this way it is conveyed to the stigmas, or female organs. It is interesting to note 

 that when a bee starts on a foraging tour she confines herself to one description of flowers, for per- 

 haps if this were not so the mixture of different pollens might interfere with their proper actions of 

 fertilisation. 



(J.) It will therefore be seen from this action of bees on plants that the agriculturist owes as 

 much to the " little busy-bee," as he does to his own skill and experience in tilling the soil and in 

 choosing his seeds. 



H. S. (Junior.) 



FERNS : SYNOPTICAL LIST.— XVI. 



Synoptical List, with Descriptions of the Ferns and Fern Allies of Jamaica, by 0, 8. Jenman, Superin- 

 tendent Botanical Gardens, Demerara, ( continued from Bulletin, No. 

 5. Pteris mutilata, JjiTLn. — Rootstock small, fibrous, clothed with dark blackish scales; stipites 

 tufted, very slender, channelled, 2-8 in. I, naked ; fronds thin, light green, pellucid, naked, 3 in. to a 

 span 1. half or two-thirds as w. at the base, the upper part simply pinnate, with a linear-oblong ter- 



