BUMBLE BEES FOR NEW ZEALAND.

Otago Witness, Volume 17, Issue 1020, 17 June 1871, Page 4

BUMBLE BEES FOR NEW ZEALAND.

The following leiter appears in a late issue of Land and Water :—: —

Sir — I was glad to see the enquiry in Land and Water as to the best method of carrying my dear old friend the bumble bee to New Zealand, and naturalising him there. They would be a most valuable face of oolonists. For whilst the ordinary honey-bee doeß its work there, as here, in the fertilisation of white clover, the red clover still remains without the assistance of that species of bee whose longer proboscis enables it to reach the nectaries inaccessible to the shorter one of the Apis mellifica. Every lover of accurate observations in natural hißtory must remember that excellent passage in Darwin's " Origin of Speoieß," pages 73 and 74, in which he shews the intimate connection between the number of oats in a given distriot and the yield of red clover seed. Cits are the natural enemies of mice, and mice the devonrers of bumble bees, so that the increase of the first involves the deorease of the second, the consequent increase of the third, and the subsequent abundant fertilisation of red

clover seed. Now in New Zealand, oats are plenty, and mice too nave introduced them* selves. The former is there, mm England,. " a domestic necessary oat," but many have gene wild in the bush, and, in lack oi aa abundance of mice, have learned to live trpca lizards. I ascertained the fact by a font mortem on a feline carcase, whioh the Maoris, vrith whom I was travelling, hunted down and were preparing to cook, as we were on very short commons. Before I made up my saind to- claim for my fair share, I had the curiosity to find out what the eat had been feeding; on. A mill-fed rat is, I believe, a delicate morsel j bat X could not fancy an old torn oat, 1 z.ird fed, as oar game proved to be. It would have been too much even for be i god Frenchmen, with a)> the aid of their excellent cuisine. My atomacir, hungry as I was, revolted at the idea of a lizard-fed oat, so there was more for those who had not such squeamish stomachs. I was myself, in 1842 and the following years, instrumental in the diffusion of the honey-bee through the islands of New Zealand. By late advices from the colony I have beard that, as I had aotioipated, the bees have taken to the bush, »nd »ny amount of honey can be obtained from the Maoris at the ridioulous price of one half-penny » pound. I should, therefore, be most happy to aid the introduction of the bumble bee* Tbe eubjeot was Drought before me last year, and I then thought much about it, and am hippy to give you the result of my cogitations.

To succeed in such an undertaking we must understand the nature of toe insect to be transplanted to the other side of the world, and in effeoting thiß, do as httfe violence as possible to his natural habit*. The honey-bee lives from year to year as a member of a sooial republics; that of the bumble bee is broken up by the first frost of autumn, and reconstituted at the arrival of spring by the impregnated females who alone survive the winter. The female bnmble bee buries itself in the earth, when the males and neuters are destroyed by the frost On this very day of writing my earn have been gladdened, as I was watching my beehives, by the droning hum of a bumble beo, the first of the season, passing close by me. I went for my inseot forceps, and at my first attempt captured two, of a rather rare species, who were feasting on the same plant, the whito arabis There is therefore 9n appropriateness in the time of which I am writing. This is the way in winch I would advise your correspondent to proceed j employ some country boys to find the nests of the sort he desires to introduce into New Zealand ; the large yellow-tailed bumblebee, the most common sort here in Cheshire, whioh builds its neßfc in mossy pastures, is that which I should advise him to seleot. When the neßt is well established and well peopled, carefully dig it out with the soil above, and the soil as much undisturbed aa possible below ; place if; in a box — an old cigar- box will 'do very well— of a size convenient for it ; bury the box in the place where the colony was founded, co that the superincumbent sod may be in its old posi° tion ; lewe it .then till the autumn, and juat before* the time when the fer'ile queens go into winter quarters, place the box undisturbed in one of larger dimensions, having a quantity of loose soil rammed in by the side of the nest-box, in which the fertilised females, if so disposed, may bury themselves. Then place them on board ship. It may be th&t the high temperature through whioh the vessel will have to pass will induce the > unable bees to remain in a state of activity, in which cue they must be fed with honey or sugar and water. However this may be. the short time in whioh tha voyage to New. Zealand is now made, will, I doubt not, enable them to reaoh their future home in a flourishing condition. Should the pregnant females have bnried themselves in the earth before they are taken on shipboxrd, they would, by surrounding thorn with ice, be kept in a torpid condition during the transit. I know not if any of the steamers going to Australia and New Zealand are provided with an ice-house ; but the eaoae means by whioh the ova of salmon and trout have been transported in a living condition to these colonies, would, I doubt not, be Buooessful if applied to the conveyance, in a torpid state, of the humbler but not less useful bumble bee.

I need hardly say that I shall be only too happy in assisting your correspondent to eB« tabUsh in boxes some colonies of bumble bees, if he will inform me when he intendi to sail, and from what port he takes his de* parture. The experiment, of course, should be tried with several colonies of bumble beea, to inorease the probability of some at least of those which aro put on board ship arriving in good condition. Should they reach New Zealand in this Bt*te, the after-treat-ment is very eimple. Without disturbing the box in whioh the colony has been established, it should be at once buried in the ground, with the surface of the soil in the box on a level with the ground, and if it happens to be the season in which flowers are not abundant, the bees should still be confined to the larger box and fed with sngar and water until the time when, on their enlargement, they are able to get their own living ij Any further details which your correa- ' pondent may desire to have I shall be most happy to Bupply if he will write to me direct. Wll. CHAEIiKS COTTOST. Vicarage, Frodsham.

Hokltika, like Westport, is suffering from the encroachments of the sea, which has undermined a portion of the wharf to snob an extent that it is expeoted to fall in.