v SOCIAL HOMES 163 



such as the Taj Mehal at Agra, which is much dis- 

 figured with the pendant combs. Many attempts to 

 remove them have been made, but no sooner is a nest 

 destroyed than it is quickly renewed at a few feet 

 distant. A. floralis, a beautiful little bee, nidifies on 

 the branches of orange and lemon trees, and garden 

 shrubs generally (see Fig. 25), occasionally in the 

 interior of mud walls, the cavities between bricks, 

 or in holes excavated by the termites or white 

 ants. Immense clusters of honey-combs hang in the 

 caves of Salsette and Elephanta, in the clefts of the 

 rocks and the recesses among the figures. So abund- 

 ant are the bees, they have been known to put 

 intrusive visitors to the rout. 



From Europe, long ago, the Honey Bee (Apis) was 

 imported into the West India Isles and the northern 

 provinces of South America, where it exists at the 

 present day domesticated, and at large in the woods 

 and forests. Not a single species of this restricted 

 genus is indigenous to the country. In North 

 America the nearest ally as regards its habits is the 

 Humble Bee, of which no fewer than forty species 

 are known. The tropics possess considerably better 

 substitutes in the genera Melipona and Trigona, the 

 celebrated stingless honey-bees of South America. 

 The Meliponce have remarkably long legs, they are 

 short and squat, generally much smaller than the 

 hive bee, some in fact are nearly as tiny as midges, 

 and extremely irritating for getting into the nostrils 

 and about the head. Though they have no sting, or 

 rather their sting is feeble and they use it seldom 

 whence the Spaniards call them angelitos, or little 



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