184 
THE PHARMACEUTICAL JOURNAL AND TRANSACTIONS. [September 2,1871. 
incredible how much honey and wax they procure from 
them; the first serves them for food, and the latter is an 
article of commerce. 
The Apis fasciata of Latreille appears to have been do¬ 
mesticated in Egypt ages before the hive bee of Europe 
was known. Niebuhr informs us it is extensively culti¬ 
vated there at present, and that he met on the Nile, be¬ 
low Mansura, a convoy of 4000 hives, which were being 
transported from a region where the flowers had passed 
to one where the spring was later. The domesticated 
bee of Egypt affords of honey no very limited supply, 
but it is rather to the wild species of the same continent, 
inhabiting the endless forests, that the greater propor¬ 
tion of honey is derived, the quantity in some regions 
being remarkably abundant; so much so that various 
tribes pay their yearly tribute with it. Sir J. E. Alex¬ 
ander, in his expedition of discovery into the interior of 
Africa, informs us that beeswax on the Orange river 
could be procured in very great abundance. A Namaqua, 
who had a waggon, assured him (and he had no reason 
to doubt his word) that on a honey hunt he had filled 
his waggon with skin-sacks of honey alone, and the side 
planks in two or three days. It is to be regretted 
that the name of the bee is not noticed. In 1830 
no less than 242 tons of beeswax, worth £100 per ton, 
was exported from the Gambia, and it appears that 
in the Mandingo country honey is retailed at 2s. 6d. per 
gallon. A considerable quantity of wax is also imported 
from the Gold Coast. The wax is sometimes attacked 
by the larvae of a species of tinea, and the weight conse¬ 
quently greatly diminished: this robbery might, no 
doubt, easily be prevented. 
Mr. W. Tegetmeier, at his apiary, Muswell Hill, has 
introduced the Apis ligustica, or Ligurian bee, an abun¬ 
dant honey collector, which has also been introduced 
successfully into Germany. The principal species of 
bees kept for domestic purposes are the following:— 
Apis mellifica , Linn., or the common hive bee of Europe, 
and which has also been introduced into the United 
States of America and New Zealand; A. ligustica , Spi- 
nola, kept in some parts of Italy; A. fasciata, Latr. in 
Egypt, and in some parts of Asia Minor; A. unicolor, 
Fab. in Madagascar; A. indica , Linn, at Bengal; A. 
Adansonii, Latr., at Senegal. 
The production of honey and wax in Austria, accord¬ 
ing to the imperial statistical bureau, was in 1854, 547,700 
cwt. of honey, and 54,770 cwt. of wax, of the value of 
about £1,000,000, but as this includes only the produce 
which enters into commerce, and four out of every five 
bee-keepers consume their own production, Austria may 
fairly be said to realize annually £3,000,000 from bee- 
culture. In the ten years ending with 1859, the imports 
of honey and honey-water into Austria have ranged 
from 3000 to 25,000 cwt. per annum, of which about 
2000 cwt. were re-exported. Of wax, in the same period, 
the imports averaged about 5000 or 6000 cwt., of which 
about 2000 cwt. were re-exported. The total number of 
bee-hives in Austria in 1854 was returned at 2,733,000, 
giving an average of 270 to the square mile, and pro¬ 
ducing for the same average area 58 cwt. of honey, and 
6 of wax, worth 945 florins. The rearing of bees is 
carried on most extensively in the Vayvode, and the 
Temesia, the Banat, Croatia, Slavonia and Transylvania, 
on the frontier of Galicia, in Styria, Carinthia and Car- 
niola. In the other provinces this trade is of little con¬ 
sequence or extent. 
In the States of the Zollverein, about 7000 or 8000 cwt. 
of wax are imported annually, of which about 2000 cwt. 
are re-exported. The import of honey is not specifically 
mentioned in the tariff; but considering the area, popu¬ 
lation and industry, the value of the honey and wax 
produced in the States may be estimated in round num¬ 
bers at £2,000,000 in value, and with that imported at 
about £2,500,000. In the Grand Duchy of Baden, there 
were returned 49,146 hives in 1855, and 75,111 in 1861. 
In Wiirtemberg there are about 100,000 hives; but this 
number might be doubled, if care were taken to provide 
at hand those plants from which the bees derive then- 
honey, and which abound in the forests, the meadows 
and the fields of colza, etc. These different plants form 
a rich spoil, from which this comparatively new industry 
might derive great advantage. Nature and art mutually 
combine to produce the different kinds of honey and 
wax, which afford a large profit to the country. The 
rearing of bees is extensively carried on in the several 
parts of European Russia, particularly in the central 
and southern governments, as well as in the Polish, and 
in Transcaucasian provinces. This insect acclimatizes 
up to a very high latitude, even in Siberia. It was long 
thought that the climate of the latter country was utterly 
unsuitable for the rearing of bees; but experiments made 
at the commencement of the present century in the 
governments of Tomsk, Omsk, and Jenisseisk, have 
proved the contrary. It has greatly suffered, however, 
in some provinces, from the destruction of the forests; 
for the bee prefers well-wooded districts, where it is pro¬ 
tected from the wind. The honey procured from the 
linden-tree ( Tilia europcca) is only obtained at the little 
town of Kowna, on the river Nieraen, in Lithuania, 
which is surrounded by an extensive forest of these trees, 
and where the rearing occupies the principal attention 
of the inhabitants. The Jews of Poland furnish a close 
imitation of this honey, by bleaching the common kinds 
in the open air during frosty weather. 
[To be continued.) 
ACTION OP HEAT ON PROTOPLASMIC LIFE. 
EY E. CRACE-CALYERT, F.R.S. 
Those investigators of germ-life who favour the theory 
of spontaneous generation have assumed that a tempera¬ 
ture of 212° Fahr., or the boiling-point of the fluid 
which they experimented upon, was sufficient to destroy 
all protoplasmic life, and that the life they subsequently 
observed in these fluids was developed from non-living- 
matter. 
I therefore made several series of experiments, in the 
hope that they might throw some light on the subject. 
The first series was made with a sugar solution, the 
second with an infusion of hay, the third with solution of 
gelatine, and the fourth with water that had been in con¬ 
tact with putrid meat. The hay and putrid-meat solu¬ 
tions were taken because they had often been used by 
other investigators ; sugar was employed, being a well- 
defined organic compound free from nitrogen, which 
can easily be obtained in a state of purity; and gelatine 
was used as a nitrogenized body which can be obtained 
pure and is not coagulated by heat. 
To carry out the experiments I prepared a series of 
small tubes made of very thick and well-annealed glass, 
each tube about four centimetres in length, and having 
a bore of five millimetres. The fluid to be operated 
upon was introduced into them, and left exposed to the 
atmosphere for sufficient length of time for germ-life to 
be largely developed. Each tube was then hermetically 
sealed and wrapped in wire gauze, to prevent any acci¬ 
dent to the operator in case of the bursting of any of the 
tubes. They were then placed in an oil-bath, and gra¬ 
dually heated to the required temperature, at which they 
were maintained for half an hour. 
Sugar Solution. —A solution of sugar was prepared by 
dissolving 1 part of sugar in 10 part of water. This 
solution was made with common water, and exposed all 
night to the atmosphere, so that life might impregnate 
it. The fluid was prepared on the 1st of November, 
1870, introduced into tubes on the 2nd, and allowed to 
remain five days. On the 7th of November twelve tubes 
were kept without being heated, twelve -were heated to 
200° F., twelve to 300° F., and twelve to 400° F. 
The contents of the tubes were microscopically ex- 
