March 2, 1891.] 
THE TROPICAL AORICULTURIST. 
653 
“APIAEIAN”; 
ARTIFICIAL COMBS FOR CEYLON BEES? 
It is marvellous in how many W33-S the advance and 
application of science touch industries even the most 
primitive all over the world. The suggestion we make 
today (Nov. 5, 1890.) is to take advantage of modern 
scientific advance in the method of collecting the honey 
of the wild bees which so musically fill the vast forests 
of our inland districts with their continuous humming. 
Our attention has been called to this subject by one 
who tells us how struck he has been by (he large 
advance made in the quantity of honey exported from 
Italy since the introduction and use of artificial combs. 
We believe that it has long been a subject of com- 
plaint that many — perhaps the greater part — of our 
forest fires are due to the means employed by the 
native bee-hunters to secure the object of their quest. 
As each year demonscrates to us the necessity for 
careful Forest Conservation, this particular point 
becomes one of much importance, and it is one that 
Colonel Clarke and his Deputies will have carefully 
to consider and, if possible, deal with. Every traveller 
through our jungles is pretty sure to come upon one 
or more trees during the course of his day’s journey 
which have been manifestly destroyed by fire, and it 
has simply been a fortunate chance, due "generally to 
weather conditions at the time of ignition, that a case 
of isolated destruction has failed to initiate a far- 
reaching conflagration. Although along many fre- 
quented lines of travel such burned trees have mostly 
been lighted by the fires of passers-by carelessly placed, 
those so often met with in the inner recesses of the 
forests have as a rule been destroyed by the efforts 
of the bee-hunters to smoke out their intended victims. 
We are told that nearly all the honey now consumed 
in England is derived from artificial combs, in which 
it is largely imported from the Continent of Europe. 
It would, therefore, certainly appear that a useful 
industry might be developed by offering to the Ceylon 
bee, which provides us with such exquisitely delicate 
honey, an opportunity for storing his hoards without 
incurring the preliminary labour ot constructing his 
“safe deposit” cells. The Italian bee, with the keen 
instinct of his kind, has almost abandoned the labour 
of cell-making. Directly he lights upon the artificial 
object, attracted to it by a bait of a dab or two of 
honey, he recognises the luxurious provision and 
straightway sets to work storing his honey, and pro- 
duces, — owing to this saving of bis preliminary labour, — 
more than twice the quantity he could before overtake. 
We should think that the men who follow the very 
laborious and risky occupation of bee hunters in Ceylon 
would gladly see around their huts the millions ot bees 
which, if tempted at the proper season, would swarm 
to the artificial combs provided for them. We have 
described the occupation of these men as a risky one. 
It is essentially so. It is rare in the remoter bee dis- 
tricts to see a hunter free from soars — the result of 
his combats with the bears who share with himself 
a strong desire to secure wild honey. From such con- 
tests the comparative domesticating of the wild bees 
would free the hunter, and his harvest would be a 
fuller one, be gathered with infinitely less of labour 
and exposure, and with more of certainty. There is 
one thing, perhaps, to be said which might negative 
the advantages we have pointed out, and that is that 
the production of bees-wax would he lessened by the 
use of artificial combs. What proportion of value 
exists between the honey and the wax yielded by a 
certain weight of comb we do not know, bnt we 
should presume the value of the honey must largely 
preponderate. Meantime, to make a beginning in tho 
experimeut, some useful result might follow if one or 
more of our Assistant Government Agents resident 
in tho bee districts would procure and hang some 
artificial combs around their bungalows. They would 
soon have many jileasant neighbours in thoir compara- 
tive solitude, and .success might lead to a very wide 
and paying adoption of their novel devices. 
THE ACTION OF LIME ON CLAY SOILS. 
That lime promotes tho fertility of heavy clay soils 
is a fact that has for many generations been well 
known to all agriculturists; but the scientific reason 
for the beneficial action arising from its application has 
not, to the best of my belief, been at any time at all 
satisfactorily explained. The question, however, 
remains one of first importance in the science of soils 
and I therefore make no apology for offering an ex- 
planation, or rather theory, which, to my doubtless, 
somewhat partial mind, seems to go a considerable 
way towards the elucidation of the problem. 
I take it for granted that all interested know that a 
clay soil is not by any means a pure clay (hydrated 
silicate of alumina), but a mixture of impure with 
jHire clay (much more of the former than of the 
latter), plus sand, iron oxides, organic matter, &c. 
The clays’wbich form its bulk have been derived from 
the natural decay or weathering of mineral silicates, 
containing', besides, aluminium, alkali, or alkaline- 
earth metals, and they occur in it in all stages of 
impurity or further decomposition. As an invariable 
rule, other things being equal, the greater the normal 
impurity of the clays the greater the fertility of the 
soil. Kpure piece of clay is like pure quartz-sand — 
so much dead, inert matter ; a plant can make nothing 
of it, can take nothing from it. In no fertile clay soil, 
however, even of the heaviest description, does there 
occur at any time more than about 10 per cent, of 
ahiolutely pure clay. Well, then, what is the composi- 
tiou of the average day particle ? That depends on 
the mineral from which it was derived. If from the 
felspars, its most common origin, it will be a hydrated 
silicate of alumina plus silicate of potash, or, instead 
of the potash, soda and lime. I will suppose, for 
brevity’s sake, that my clay particles have the former 
composition, and the explanation which I will offer 
with regard to their behaviour can be applied with 
very little difficulty to any of the other cases. Clay 
particles of the above composition, when subjected to 
the action of water containing carbonic acid gas, lose 
potash. That I have repeatedly proved by experiment. 
If tho carbonic acid is in fair excess, it comes away 
altogether as carbonate of potash ; but if there is 
not a sufficiency of this anhydride, it is liberated 
partly as soluble silicate of potash (soluble glass). 
Should lime, however, in tliia latter case be present, 
the practically insoluble calcium silicate will be con- 
stituted, and the potashjfreed to form a soluble salt 
with any other acid that may be presentjand available, 
such as carbonic, sulphur, nitric, &c. A grass plant 
gowing in clay soil does not, it is evident, send suflBcient 
carbonic acid through its root-hairs into the sell, aa 
many other plants do, to completely convert the 
liberated potash into carbonate, and. the consequence 
is that the soluble silicate of potash which is permitted 
to form is drawn into the vegetable, as well as the 
carbonate of that alkali. Now silica and silicates are 
decidedly injurious, to all vegetables doubtless, but 
particularly to agricultural plants, I say injuriousu ; 
the day has gone by for considering silica an essential, 
or useful, or even a merely innoxious accessory- A 
little examination of the plant-physiology shows that 
it is injurious. The organism tries to get rid of it 
as speedily as possible — that is, at least to get it out 
of the way of its general circulation ; it unfortunately 
has no means of casting it off altogether. Here, I 
need scarcely refer to (he well-known experiments 
which have, over and)*Gver again, conclusively shown 
that the grass plant does not require silica as a sup- 
porting or strengthening material. Now we come to 
see the use of lime in the clay soil, especially in the 
case of the cultivation of cereals and pastnral grasses. 
The lime added and mix"d up with tho soil acts on 
the soluble silicate of potash as it is formed, and 
combines with the silica, constituting, as I have already 
remarked, the practically insoluble silicate of lime, 
which, of course, being normally indissolvable in the 
soil, cannot pass into the body of the plant. There- 
fore, the organism profits by its exclusion, and as a 
consequence so does the farmer. The energies of tho 
plant are not spent in getting rid of ejljca if there i^ 
