189'; 



THE AMERICAN BEE KEEPER. 



77 



after having dispersed, suffocated or 

 burned the laborers, they fell the tree 

 and appropriate the fruits of their in- 

 dustry." 



My own opinion is that the Meli- 

 pona would succeed where moths 

 and ants are troublesome, and 

 it is generally considered that the dif- 

 ference between them and Apis, struc- 

 turally speaking, is very slight. They 

 would seem by all accounts to be good 

 wax makers. I have seen several 

 species but never a nest of the large 

 kinds. The honey of the small kinds 

 is very good and most of the bee hunt- 

 ers of Venezuela prefer it to our own 

 kind. 



In regard to the east Indies we are 

 well off for information. Many trav- 

 elers have touched the theme. Dr. 

 Alfred R. Wallace, the friend and co- 

 laborer of Darwin, has given us a most 

 graphic account of Apis dorsata that 

 leaves little to be desired. You will 

 find it in his well known book on the 

 Malay Archipelago. 



Here is what Forbes says in his 

 "Naturalist's Wanderings" about 

 Apis dorsata : 



"During the brief twilight after the 

 sun had disappeared, the air for some 

 twenty minutes was suddenly filled 

 with the hum of bees (Apis dorsata) as 

 if a swarm had alighted among the' 

 flowers of the gum trees. Just before 

 daybreak, while it is still dusk, the 

 morning air is in a similar manner in- 

 undated with their noisy hum. This 

 singular habit of these bees in feeding 

 in the sunless hour of the morning and 

 evening I was totally unaware of till I 

 came to live at Fatunaba where, close 

 to our door a grove of these trees 

 grew. In the evening the melaleuca 

 (fine honey tree) certainly becomes 



more fragrant than it is at mid-day ; 

 but I could not ascertain what would 

 be very interesting to know, if its flow- 

 ers exude their nectar or shed their 

 pollen more freely late in the evening 

 and early in the morning." 



This query is easy enough to answer. 

 The rays of the tropical sun bear down 

 so directly as to dry the dectar out of 

 the flowers by 10 o'clock A. M. More- 

 over there is hardly such a thing as 

 twilight in the tropics, and bees soon 

 get to know that when the sun goes 

 down there are only a few minutes left 

 to get their fill and fly home, otherwise 

 they will have to stay out all hight, so 

 they troop home just as they do when 

 a shower is coming. Again, during 

 the night the flowers collect more nec- 

 tar, and as the sun rises all at once 

 the bees simply " swarm " to their 

 work and " make honey while the sun 

 is obscured by morning mists." That 

 keen observer. Dr. F. W. Burbidge, 

 in his " Gardens of the Sun," gives us 

 a short but excellent account of the 

 apiaries he saw in the East Indies. 

 He says ; 



"Here at Kian, as at all the Dusan 

 villages along our way, we noticed 

 large quantities of tame or domesti- 

 cated bees. These are kept in cylin- 

 drical hives formed of a hollow tree- 

 trunk and are placed on a shelf fixed 

 under the overhanging eaves of the 

 houses. In several instances the hives 

 were on shelves inside the houses, a 

 hole being made through the "ataps" 

 corresponding with the hole in the 

 hive, so as to allow egress and ingress 

 — a plan similar to that adopted by 

 the bee keepers of Kashmir." 



Who says the house apiary is some- 

 thing new ? It is certain the bees seen 

 by Mr. Burbidge were not Apis dor- 



