196 QUEENSLAND AGRICULTURAL JOURNAL. [L Mar., 1902. 
One ton of grapes will yield about 130 gallons of grape juice (about 1,600 
Ib.), leaving about 600 lb. of stalks and of pressed skins; 600 Ib. of fresh 
grape pomace represents, roughly speaking, 60 gallons, which after fermentation 
would yield, theoretically, 74 gallons of proof brandy, but, after allowing for the 
elimination of the undesirable alcohols and fusel oil, would practically yield 3 
to 4 gallons of pure proof brandy, or at the rate of about 15 gallons of brandy 
for 1 ton of fresh grape pomace, the produce of a 4-ton crop of 1 acre of 
grapes. Thus a 4-ton crop of grapes would yield— 
400 gallons of sound wine, producing 80 gallons of brandy. 
One ton, or over, fresh pomace ... 15 4 > " 
Lees ... ae on i ak 2 3; nm on 
Total amount of brandy from 4 tons 
of grapes 
These figures show that, without reckoning the interest and sinking fund 
on purchase of land and cost of management, 100 acres of productive vineyard 
land in the locality referred to would yield, at a cost of a little over £1,800, 9,700 
gallons of pure grape brandy, worth at least 16s. a gallon, equal to £2,900, or, 
after making a very liberal allowance for interest and sinking fund on capital 
cost of land and plant, supervision, and cost of production, the net profit on such 
a venture can safely be put down at £500 to £600 per 100 acres.—Journal of 
Agriculture of Western Australia. 
hor gallons of brandy. 
A NEW ENEMY OF BEES. 
Mons. A. Girard, says the Rerue Générale Agronomique, has just made a 
most interesting communication to the Entomological Society of France on the 
above subject. We know, he says, that the common bee (Ap?s mellifera), which 
was introduced into Australia in 1862 by Edward Wilson, thrives admirably 
there, thanks to the abundance of honey-yielding flowers, and doubtless also 
because a large number of its enemies in the old country have not beenstrans- 
ported to Austral lands. 
But Mr. Walter W. Froggatt, Government Entomologist of New South 
Wales, has just published a singular fact which might, by becoming general, 
cause serious losses to apiculturists. A. little Lamellicorne very common in 
Australia, the Phyllotochus Macleayi, Fischer, about 8 millimetres long (about 
one-third of an inch), which up to the present lived exclusively in the flowers 
of certain shrubs, especially in those of Angophoras and Leptospermum, has for 
the past two years begun to enter the hives, finding it more convenient to 
devour the honey collected by the bees. The Phyllochus begins pillaging at 
twilight, and in three nights an apiculturist at Cooma destroyed 9 litres (93 
pints) of these depredators by placing in the hives vessels full of honied water, 
in which they were drowned. 
There must be some mistake about the European bee having been first 
introduced into Australia in 1862. In 1860, bees were so numerous in Queens- 
land that splitters and timber-getters would often get three or four large 
colonies in a day, and quantities of honey could be found in any settler’s house. 
The bee was more probably introduced by Governor Phillip, who brought over 
a great many valuable European animals. Honey was found by settlers in 
Governor Bligh’s time in 1795, but it is not stated whether it was the honey of 
the stingless native bee or of the European variety. Dr. Lang, who landed in 
New South Wales in 1828, mentioned the existence of our honey bee in that 
State. Mr. F. M. Bailey, Government Botanist of Queensland, saw the 
European bee in Adelaide in the fifties. There is, in an old Illustrated London 
News of 1854 or 1855, a picture of a New South Wales blackfellow tracking 
the European bee to its hive in a hollow tree.—Hd. Q.4.J. 
