Evelyn Sprawson—1936 and 1937



273



1936 AND I937


By Evelyn Sprawson, M.O., D.Sc., M.K.C.S., F.Z.S.


A brief account of one or two happenings during 1936-7 may be

of some interest to others, so I forward them.


Barnard’s Parakeet (Barnardius barnardius), our old hen—we have

had her fourteen years—went to nest with her second husband (her

first having died two years before) in 1936, and brought up a family

of three fine youngsters. She had laid two clutches, but the first got

caught in a cold spell, and did not hatch, so she laid a second. On the

day she began to sit, fortunately a Sunday, when I was at home to see,

some hundreds of wild bees (species unknown) were flying about the

aviaries and entering Parrakeet nest boxes, and of course concentrated

on the Barnards’ box, so that she came off. Doing what I could to

save the situation, I raised my hands for the Barnards’ to go into the

shelter—they are very tame and went in with no fuss—and closed the

shelter trap, emptied the Barnard nest of some ten or twelve bees

already in it, and plugged the entrance hole with a handkerchief, and

then set out on the four or five Parrakeet nests, round which there were

still many bees, saucers containing some honey and rum, hoping the

bees would be diverted by this counter-attraction, and leave the

Barnards’ nest alone if not the others. A folded towel was used to

“ swat ” many on the outside of the Barnards’ nest. The rum and

honey accounted for many, and hard work with the towel cleared the

neighbourhood of the Barnards’ nest, so that after an hour and a half

I opened the trap, and Mrs. B. went straight back on to her nest, as

if nothing had happened. Some of the bees hung around for the next

two or three days, but they were then concentrating on a Manycolours

in the next aviary, which had a saucer of the honey mixture on top

of it, and, as no nesting was going on there, it didn’t matter, and things

went on all right afterwards as far as the Barnards w'ere concerned.

This sort of bee has in previous years nested in a hole in a nearby oak

tree, some 15 feet from the ground.


Mrs. Barnard’s second husband is a large and very handsome

imported bird, and had been in England for some years before he

came into my possession, probably before the ban, and, like a good



