HUMBLE BEES.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 770, 3 December 1886, Page 20

HUMBLE BEES.

TO THE EDITOR OE THE NEW ZEALAND MAIL. Sir,—Your paper last week contained an account of the Masterton fishponds, which are a credit to the place, to the Acclimatisation Society, and to the care and energy of Mr William Beetham. I am an old sportsman and a New Zealand settler, and can appreciate the value of the ponds both aesthetically and commercially ; but there is one point where the Society might confer on the district

and on the North Island a boon worth many thousands a year, and, so far as I can learn, simple as it is, have not yet done it. The humble bee abounds in Canterbury, and although introduced at Christchurch a very few years ago, may be found already from Waikari to Timaru. The bee fertilises the red clever and in pasture lands enables it to reproduce itself ; on arable lands would enable the New Zealand grower to raise his own seed, worth about four times as much per pound as Fiji sugar; would make the country independent of supplies from abroad, and without a bonus establish valuable home industries. I offered a handsome sum last winter myself to some young friends at Christchurch for a nest or two, delivered here ; but it was not my friends’ specialty, and they did not succeed. It is, and ought to be, a specialty of the Acclimatisation Society. Why don’t they do it ? A few nests delivered in Wellington would be gladly purchased by intelligent owners of pasture lands. lam sorry that rabbits prevent my undertaking at present the task in person.—l am, &c., J. C. Andrew. Wellington Club, 22nd Nov.