Live Stock 



50 



[July, 1911. 



the native apidce are tor the most 

 part too insignificant in size to fulfil 

 the function of floral fertilization. Prob- 

 ably in the case of flowering trees their 

 fertilisation is partly secured by the 

 crowds of honey-sucking parrots and 

 other birds which scream and chatter 

 among the laden boughs, and completed 

 by the honey-eating beetles, of which 

 there are great numbers. The uncer- 

 tainty of the times of blossoming, on the 

 other hand, is a feature more remark- 

 able than the first, and extremely dis- 

 concerting to the apiarist. In countries 

 of more temperate climate, furnished 

 with a constant water supply or with 

 more regular periods of rainfall, the 

 honey season, if not the quantity of 

 honey, can be depended upon with toler- 

 able exactness. In Europe the field 

 crops, the fruit and forest trees, the 

 heather, have little variation in their 

 times of blossom. In Northern America 

 bee-keepers can count upon clover, bass- 

 wood forests, or mountain sage almost 

 to a day ; and the fail brings in its 

 regular supplement of goldenrod and 

 other meadow and marsh plants. In 

 Cuba and tropical South America the 

 honey-flow is always in the winter 

 months. In Northern Asia and in 

 Canada the yield is governed by the 

 annual melting of the snow. In India it 

 appears the migratory Apis dorsata is 

 sufficiently regular in its habits for its 

 native owners to date by. But in 

 Australia, at any rate in Southern 

 Queensland, it is almost an abnormality 

 for eucalypts to blossom in successive 

 years, or within weeks or even months 

 of the preceding time of flowering ; 

 while they will occasionally, though 

 rarely, blossom twice in the same year, 

 %.e., during the twelve months from 

 winter to winter. Comparing season 

 with season, it seems that most eucalyp- 

 tus would blossom normally every 

 other year ; but, through an age-long 

 experience of our variable climate, they 

 have developed an excessive, one might 

 almost say prescient, sensitiveness to 

 meteorological conditions. They are 

 guilty of no temerarious lavishness in 

 their arrangements for continuing their 

 species. In wet seasons they will 

 scarcely blossom at all, even for two 

 or three years. In dry seasons they 

 will blossom year after year until the 

 next wet period. Indeed, it may be 

 said that the hotter and drier the season 

 the more abundantly they flower. But 

 the very shoots of these trees seem to 

 wait until the last moment to decide 

 whether they shall become tufts of new 

 leaves or branches of honey-laden j 

 blossom ; and if by any chance they j 

 have been deceived by appearances of 



drought into the formation of the 

 latter, they possess the power — even 

 after the flower- buds are apparently 

 fully formed — of holding them month 

 after month unopened. I have seen a 

 grey gum (Eu. saligna) in my stable- 

 yard with flower-buds that hung for 

 thirteen months without any apparent 

 external change until they finally burst 

 into blossom at the end of that long 

 time of waiting. This was during the 

 flood year of 1893. Incredible as it may 

 be thought, I believe that observations 

 of gum-tree blossoming, continued 

 through a number of years, would give 

 data upon which fairly reliable fore- 

 casts of coming seasons could be made. 

 For example, the last two years, reck- 

 oned from May to May, have been an 

 unusual period of intermittent rainfall. 

 During that time the eucalypts have 

 occupied themselves in extending their 

 leaf growth ; but as early as April this 

 year almost every kind of eucalypt 

 might have been observed to be develop- 

 ing extraordinary masses of flower-buds, 

 and if the season should prove dry 

 throughout, though not an unmixed 

 blessing to the community in general, 

 it will bring a wealth of harvest to 

 the hives. Old ways are still heard of 

 by which the weatherwise could read 

 the skies; and old-fashioned bee- 

 keepers believed their bees knew how 

 to forecast the coming season. There 

 may, indeed, be more in the affinities of 

 Nature than we think ; and we may, 

 perhaps, come to understand better her 

 infinite mysterious sympathies when 

 we have ceased to attack her with the 

 egotistic mathematicism of our day, and 

 have learned to approach her through 

 avenues of greater receptiveness and 

 love. 



" Besides the irregularity due to wet 

 or dry seasons, eucalypts vary exceed- 

 ingly in the normal time of flowering 

 according to the individual kinds. Eu. 

 maculata (spotted gum) flowers usually 

 in midwinter ; tereticornis (blue gum) 

 about August ; crebra (red ironbark) 

 about September ; melano-pholia (silver- 

 leaved ironbark) easly in December ; 

 sidero-phloia (grey ironbark) sometimes 

 in December, oftener later; corymbosa 

 (bloodwood), usually the latest about 

 March ; and so on through the numerous 

 kinds of the species. But the blossoming 

 of individuals fluctuates much according 

 to their distance; from the coast, or 

 position north and south. Perhaps 

 of all the sorts in Southern Queens- 

 i| land, tereticornis (blue gum) and 

 ^corymbosa (bloodwood) are the most 

 constant as to the flowering time of 

 year. It is evident then that were.it 



