THE BUSY BEE.

Hawera Star, Volume XLV, 14 November 1925, Page 3

THE BUSY BEE.

TO ENJOY TWO SUMMERS. NO 1 WINTER REST ALLOWED. Tli© proverbially busy bee is to be kept busier still if the idea of Mr. Janies Ballantyne, formely of Clydesdale, Scotland, works out successfully. Mr. Ballantyne arrived in Auckland by the Niagara on Monday with a shipment of live bees. The bees were obtained from four hives in Nelson, Bri. tish Columbia, and had already during the summer there produced a good crop of honey. The object in transporting them across the Pacific is of course to take advantage of the reversed seasons. in other words to secure inside 12 months, two summers and two honey harvests. Permission to import the bees were previously obtained from the Minister for Agriculture and the bees were shipped with a certificate of health from the Inspector of Apiaries in British Columbia. As the importation of entire stocks or (colonies, iincluding brood and honeycombs, is ■ prohibited the bees were shipped like swarms, that is without any combs or honey. . This rule is a safeguard in order to minimise the chances of the disease known as “foul brood” being introduced. The shipment just made is in the nature of an experiment, and the fact that the method of shipping has proved satisfactory now opens up quite a big field for future development. Advantage was .taken of the cool storage room on the Niagara and, as a cargo of Canadian apples was being shipped at a controlled temperature of about 4£ degrees Fahrenheit, the bee cages were put in the same room. One of the cages was provisioned with sugar syrup and the other eight with soft sugar only. There were in all about 301 b. of live bees with ten queens, and as there are about 4500 bees to the lb. the shipment contained 135,000 units to begin with. The members in only one of the cages have survived. The bees in this colony were fed on sugar syrup, a liquicl consisting of about 101 b. of ordinary refined cane sugar in seven quarts of water. The. eight colonies which perished en route were all fed on sugar candy, which is made with about the same quantity of sugar in a much smaller measure of water. It should he a moist butterly kind of candy, but actually, owing to the hastiness of the preparations in British Columbia, it turned out too hard and dry. The result was that the colonies so provisioned died. The members of the ninth and surviving colony were landed in good order and apparently are quite happy. They have been given temporary quarters in a garden in Belgium Street near good foraging grounds such as the Symonds Street Cemetery and Albert Park. Later Mr. Ballantyne expects to give his hive a chance to harvest the white clover honey that is so greatly appreciated on the London market. “A first impression of the matter is that the transportation costs, involving two overland journeys and the ocean voyage, would be too gxeat, hut such is not the case,”- said Mr. Ballantyne in discussing the commercial side of his venture. “It hns to he remembered in this connection that there is a considerable saving of the honey usually left with

the bees for winter stores and the value of this is more than the cost of transportation.” But if the apiarist travels with the bees his rail and ocean fares have to be reckoned in that expense, which of course will be variable according to the class of transportation purchased, and will have to he deducted from the value of the second crop of honey. This will of course reduce- the net profits (jonsiderably. but fora while it is probable that these expenses can be met independently of the additional honey crop. Provided glood qujeens are maintained and annual re-queening is practised, it is quite feasible to expect that the doubled breeding season and doubled natural increase of stocks due to two summers will twice a year result in such an addition' of stocks that either out of the proceeds of the sale of such swarms or their product in honey the costs.of the rail and ocean fares of the apiarist can be defrayed. Obviously good pasture locations at each eml will be of "the utmost importance to enable the swarms to re-estabisli themselves quickly on the combs and build up to harvesting strength. Mr. Ballantyne’,s plan is ambitious. There would be no winter for bees, but two working summers each year Twice a year, however, the hives would have a three week’s holiday during their ocean , voyage across the Pacific with sugar syrup provided free and an ever, climate*set dead at 40 degrees Fahreß.. belt.