July, 1908.] 



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Live Stock. 



queen bees are more inclined to travel 

 out than others, and they avoid this by- 

 getting rid of the superfluous queen bees. 

 These precautions may be undertaken 

 with advantage in regard to bee-culture 

 in this country. It would also be useful 

 to import European queen bees from 

 Italy, as it has been found that their 

 domestication with Indian bees tends to 

 increase the yield of honey. The bees in 

 this country are knowu to have two 

 working seasons when they make them- 

 selves very busy in storing honey— one 

 in June and July, and the other from 

 September to November. These two 

 seasons correspond with the two mon- 

 soons, and during these two seasons it 

 has been found possible to secure a full 

 yield of honey from the hives. There is 

 also another advantage ; the rocks, it 

 being the end of the year, generally get 

 dry and are not slippery ; and conse- 

 quently the process of collecting the 

 honey is less dangerous. 



We would suggest the advisability of 

 rearing the small species (Apis Meleponia.) 

 This yields the best honey, though in 

 small quantity. These bees in their wild 

 state are not very choice in regard to the 

 flowers on which they settle. They are 

 apt to gather the nectar from all sorts of 

 wild blossoms. Great care should be 

 taken so to train the bees as to make 

 them settle on choice flowers. When 

 once they are put in the way they eschew 

 indifferent and poisonous blossoms, 

 always sticking to choice flowers. We 

 said that the small sized mosquito bees 

 would be easily amenable to home rear- 

 ing ; and from experiments made here 

 and there by amateur apiarists on a 

 small scale, we are assured that they can 

 be successfully reared on the slopes of 

 the hills in Southern India, where it is 

 not very difficult to cultivate good varie- 

 ties of English flowers from which the 

 bees may draw good nectar. 



Bee culture, on the whole, is a very 

 profitable industry. In addition to the 

 honey supplied by the bees, there is the 

 bees ' wax, the preparation of which does 

 not require much skilled labour. The 

 honey-combs from which the wax is ex- 

 tracted are procurable from the hill tribes 

 who collect the honey from trees and 

 rocks. The season for wax-making is hot 

 weather. There are two parts for the 



comb— the upper part yields the honey, 

 while the lower part holds the eggs or 

 brood. Both the parts contain wax, the 

 upper part giving a clean white wax, 

 and the lower part yielding a dirty- 

 coloured variety of the same substance. 

 The following is the process of collect- 

 ing the wax from the combs. After 

 draining off the honey from the combs, 

 they should be well squeezed by the 

 hands until they are entirely divested 

 of the sweet fluid — the combs should be 

 washed in cold water. The honey is 

 then placed in a pot of water and well 

 warmed over an open fire. The wax 

 melts out and can be collected in the 

 form of balls or cakes. The wax in its 

 first form may contain impurities : it has 

 only to be remelted and well strained 

 through a coarse cloth and the impuri- 

 ties will go. In certain countries in 

 manufacturing wax a little turmeric is 

 mixed with the finished wax. This is 

 done just to give the wax a rich golden 

 hue. The demand for wax has become 

 greater than for honey, especially in the 

 Straits Settlements and Java. Apicul- 

 ture, it will be seen, has not yet been 

 seriously undertaken upon systematic 

 lines as a separate industry in any part 

 of Southern India, but in view of the 

 great demand there is for honey and 

 Avax, steps ought to be taken to develop 

 this industry on a large scale. There is 

 a great field for it, and with some enter- 

 prise a very profitable industry can be 

 easily built up in Southern India. — 

 Indian Agriculturist, Vol, XXXIII., No. 

 1, January 1, 1908. 



INSECT HYPNOTISM. 



A queen bee can hypnotise her whole 

 hive whenever she wants to. She makes 

 a curious humming sound and within a 

 moment or two every bee in the colony 

 will fall into a hypnotic trance. The 

 death's head hawke-moth is also a 

 hypnotist of great power, and makes its 

 living by hypnotism. Entering a hive, 

 it makes a sound not unlike the queen 

 bee s note, and the bees immediately 

 sink into slumber, and the intruder then 

 proceeds to rob at its leisure. — Journal of 

 the Department of Agriculture, Western 

 Australia, Vol. XVI., Part 4, April, 1908. 



