Page:Jardine Naturalist's library Bees.djvu/292

288 they multiplied in the hollows of the old trees, that there was soon sufficient wax for the annual consumption. In 1777, fourteen years from their introduction, 715,000 lbs. weight of wax were exported from the Havannah, of a quality equal to the wax of Venice. Including the contraband, Cuba exported in 1803, 42,670 arobas of wax, equal to more than 1900 tons. The price was then from twenty to twenty-one piastres per aroba; but the average price in time of peace is only fifteen piastres, or £3, 2s. 6d. sterling. A small part of this wax is produced by the wild bees of the genus Trigones, which occupy the trunks of the Cedrela odorata; but the principal part is the produce of the common honey-bee, originally imported from the old world to America—extended to the Southern States, and finally transferred to Cuba by the settlers from Florida. In Jamaica, bees are cultivated to some extent,