We now add to the testimonies already cited that of Mr. Woodbury, as to the superior qualities of Ligurian bees. The following is extracted from the paper contributed by him to the Bath and West of England Agricultural Journal:—"From my strongest Ligurian stock I took eight artificial swarms in the spring, besides depriving it of numerous brood-combs. Finding, in June, that the bees were collecting honey so fast that the queen could not find an empty cell in which to lay an egg, I was reluctantly compelled to put on a super. When this had been filled with 38 lbs. of the finest honeycomb,[26] I removed it, and as the stock-hive (a very large one) could not contain the multitude of bees which issued from it, I formed them into another very large artificial swarm. The foregoing facts speak for themselves; but as information on this point has been very generally asked, I have no hesitation in saying that I believe the Ligurian honey-bee infinitely superior in every respect to the only species that we have hitherto been acquainted with."
[26] This super was exhibited at our stand in the International Exhibition of 1862.
In a private letter received from Mr. Langstroth, he informs us that he has, in the season of 1865, bred over 300 Ligurian queens; these he has disseminated to various bee-masters on the American continent, and the united opinion of apiarians in that country is increasingly in favour of the decided advantage of the cultivation of the Italian bee.
After such emphatic testimony as this, corroborated, as it is, by many other observers, there seems every reason to expect that the Ligurian bee will gradually supersede the common kind throughout the United Kingdom. The honey-bee of the Holy Land is the Ligurian.
The Rev. H. B. Tristram, M.A., in his valuable book, "The Land of Israel," has the following interesting account of the bees in that country:—In Palestine bee-keeping is not an unimportant item of industry, and every house possesses a pile of bee-hives in its yard. Though similar in its habits, the hive-bee of Palestine is a different species to our own. "We never," he says, "found Apis mellifica, L., our domestic species, in the country, though it very possibly occurs in the north; but the common Holy Land insect, Apis ligustica, is amazingly abundant; both in hives, in rocks, and in old hollow, trees. It is smaller [?] than our bees, with brighter yellow, bands: on the thorax and abdomen, which, is rather wasp-like in shape, and with very long antennæ. In its habits, and especially in the immense population of neuters in each community, and in the drones cast forth in autumn, it resembles the other species. Its sting, also, is quite as sharp. The hives are very simple, consisting of large tubes of sun-dried mud, like gas-pipes, about four feet long, and closed with mud at each end, leaving only an aperture in the centre, large enough for two or three bees to, pass at a time. The insects appear to frequent both doors equally. The tubes are laid in rows horizontally, and piled in a pyramid. I counted one of these colonies, consisting of seventy-eight tubes, each a distinct hive. Coolness being the great object, the whole is thickly plastered over with mud, and covered with boughs, while a branch is stuck in the ground at each end, to assist the bees in alighting. At first we took these singular structures for ovens or hen-houses. The barbarous practice of destroying the swarms for their honey is unknown. When the hives are fully, the clay is removed from the ends of the pipes, and the honey extracted with an iron hook; those pieces of comb which contain young bees being carefully replaced, and the hives then closed up again. Everywhere during our journey we found honey was always to be purchased; and it is used by the natives for many culinary purposes, and especially for the preparation of sweet cakes. It has the delicate aromatic flavour of the thyme-scented honey of Hybla or Hymettus.
"But, however extensive are the bee-colonies of the villages, the number of wild bees of the same species is far greater. The innumerable fissures, and clefts of the limestone rocks, which everywhere flank the valleys, afford in their recesses secure shelter for any number of swarms; and many of the Bedouin, particularly in the wilderness of Judæea, obtain: the subsistence by bee-hunting, bringing into Jerusalem jars of that wild, honey on which John the Baptist fed in the wilderness, and which Jonathan had long before unwittingly tasted, when the comb had dropped on the ground from the hollow tree in which it was suspended. The visitor to the Wady Kurn, when he sees the busy multitudes of bees about its cliffs, cannot but recall to mind the promise, 'With honey out of the stony rock would I have satisfied thee.' There is no epithet of the Land of Promise more true to the letter, even to the present day, than this, that it was 'a land flowing with milk and honey."
Does not evidence such as this point to the conclusion that the bees which Sampson found in the carcase of the lion were Ligurian; and may we not further speculate that the ribs of the carcase constituted the first bar-hive? Surely, "there is no new thing under the sun."
LIVING BEES AT THE INTERNATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862, SENDING BEES TO AUSTRALIA, &c.
The engraving represents our stand in the Agricultural Department of the International Exhibition of 1862. The space granted us in the World's Great Fair was somewhat limited; but we were able to exhibit a tolerably complete stock of apiarian apparatus, and all the more important bee-hives. Amongst these was an unicomb hive stocked with the Yellow Alpine or "Ligurian" bee. This was an object of great attention, and daily hundreds of visitors flocked round our stand, in order to watch the movements of the Italian queen, with her gay and busy subjects. The entrance-way for the bees being in the "Open Court," to which all visitors had access, it was necessary to place the hive in an elevated position, so as for it to be beyond the reach of incautious passers-by, and to obviate any chance of annoyance to the vast crowds of people continually around.