BEES FOR CHINA

Hokitika Guardian, 25 January 1932, Page 7

BEES FOR CHINA

CANADIAN ENTERPRISE. Something new in Canada's export trade with the Orient, and likely to have far-reaching effect, was inaugurated recently when 31 r C. Reidel, ot Taber, Alberta, shipped 1200 colonies of screened bees and their accompanying queens from the province of Alberta to China. The Canadan Pacific Railway, in charge of the unique shipment, arranged for quick transit to Aan couver, where the bees were loaded immodiatelv into special refrigeration compartments on the Empress of Russia, which sailed on Nevembei 21st It has been discovered that tl’ l ' variety of bee that makes honey "■ Europe and America, apis meUifica. produces almost twice as much lumey as the notice Asi-tie hue that has made honey for the Chinese since the time of Confucius. In China honey is not so much a food as a medicine. It is sold ill all Chinese apothecary shops for medicine recipes.

Mr Koidel has already made two shi- incuts of bees to China from his Californiau apiaries, and is now t.akiii<r leave of absence from bis firm lor live years. He will accompany the present shipment of 120!) three-lnme nuclei from Alberta, and will demonstrate modern Canadian amt American methods of bee culture in t l "' Orient K 'et, of the 1200 colonies will have its purebred Italian queen.