162 ROMANCE OF THE INSECT WORLD CHAP. 



viduals than those of any other species ; between 

 three and four hundred members sometimes apper- 

 tain to one nest. This is a sparse society as com- 

 pared with the hive ; but the honey-bee is much 

 smaller, and its cells in which it is hatched and 

 nurtured are correspondingly minute. Those of the 

 Humble Bee are not only large, they are set very 

 irregularly and occupy extensive space. Cells 

 capable of holding an assemblage of three or four 

 hundred form a great group, and require a cavity to 

 contain them enormous in proportion to the size of 

 the excavators. Underground-builders seem of more 

 vindictive character than the Carders, and appear to 

 resent interference with some ferocity. Nests of the 

 Carders, on the other hand, may be taken almost with 

 impunity. 



The Honey Bee (Apis) is not wild in this country ; 

 in the East, its supposed original home, it exists in 

 this state in great abundance. Apis indica and 

 nigrocincta, species probably in general domesticity 

 in India, build in hollow trees or crevices in rocks ; 

 as opposed to Apis dorsata, which likes to hang its 

 combs from the undersides of boughs of trees or 

 rocks. Apis dorsata is perhaps the best known of 

 Indian honey-bees, and is extensively cultivated in 

 the Himalayahs. Probably rocks are its favourite 

 natural nest-sites, where it is sheltered from the 

 weather and the attacks of bears. In the hills, as 

 every one knows, these quadrupeds make almost any 

 effort to get at the combs and honey in trees, caring 

 little for the stings of the defrauded creatures. 

 Numbers of nests constantly hang from old buildings, 



