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THE AMERICAN BEE JOURNAL. 



501 



tent, they aro nearly If not quite Identically the same as they 

 were when they first left the hands of the Creator. There Is 

 a certain amount of improvement by the "survival of the fit- 

 test," and yet such Improvemeut has not advanced these bees 

 as much during all the centuries which have past as has the 

 hand of man the Italians during the past 35 years; nor has 

 the hand of man ever made as much improvement on thcni 

 duriiiK all the long past as has been made with the Italians 

 during the last 10 years. 



There Is one thing which I wish to notice in the corres- 

 pondent's communication before closing. He wishes to know 

 whether the black queens would not be " lanjer, finer, and 

 more prolific," had the right course of breeding been pursued. 

 All of my experience goes to prove than an exceedingly large 

 queen is rarely if ever as good as one of medium size ; and if 

 It is meant that a large queen is "finer" than one not so 

 large, I must differ from the one asking the question. 



A very large queen seems to be less active than a medium- 

 sized queen, and so far as my experience goes they cannot bo 

 depended upon to bring the colony up to the greatest strength 

 at the pleasure of the apiarist so well as can queens of lesser 

 size. In fact, a very small queen will often give much better 

 results than these large ones. 



Not long ago I received about the smallest queen I ever 

 saw from a party in the South who wrote, "This queen is 

 very small, but seems to be prolific, so we send her to you. If 

 she does not prove good we will send another." Well, that 

 queen filled her hive with brood, and kept it filled much better 

 than any of the other queens the party sent me, and gave 

 splendid results, thus proving that large size in a queen was 

 not of so much advantage as many suppose. 



The old saying, that " You cannot tell by the looks of a 

 toad how far it can jump," applies equally as well to a queen 

 as to other things. The queen that Is capable of producing 

 the desired number of worker-bees in just the right time for 

 honey-harvest, and these workers have the desired energy in 

 securing the harvest (all minor qualities being equal) Is the 

 queen which will give the best results, be she large or small ; 

 but, as a rule, the real moneyed results will generally go with 

 the queen of medium size, for she is the most apt to give the 

 bees as above. Onondago Co., N. Y. 



The Bees of Borneo and the East. 



BV G. D. HAVII.AND. 



The genus Apis, the honey-comb builders, may be conven- 

 iently divided into three parts, — the small bees, the big bees, 

 and the medium-sized bees. 



1. — The small bees, whose workers are less than \ of an 

 inch in length ; their nest is exposed, attacht to a twig from 

 six to 1 r> feet above the ground, and consists of a single small 

 comb, which the bees, when frightened, temporarily forsake. 

 The queen is at once distinguisht by the comparatively enor- 

 mous size of the thorax ; the drones, too, are very different 

 from the diones of other bees, the dense velvet down on the 

 thorax being wanting, and the abdomen narrower and more 

 curved, but the most curious are the large blunt lobes or pegs 

 on the tarsal seginents of the posterior legs, arising from its 

 anterior upper margin and passing downwards, no rudiment 

 or trace of which can be seen in ordinary drones. These bees 

 are found only in tropical Asia and the islands of the Malay 

 Archipelago ; owing to their small size they are of no use to 

 bee-keepers or to bee-hunters. Only one species is known — 

 Apis fiorea. 



2. — The big bees, whose workers are more than ^ of an 

 inch in lengih ; these, too, have their nest exposed, and com- 

 posed of only a single comb, bnt this is a large one and gener- 

 ally placed on inaccessible cliffs or large unclimbable trees, 

 the occasionally In more accessible places. Owing to the po- 

 sition of their nests and the size of their stings these bees can 

 successfully drive off all enemies by day. They, too, are found 

 only In tropical Asia and the islands of the Malay Archipelago. 

 Owing to the quantity of wax in their large comb, it is highly 

 valued by natives, but these bees are not domesticated. Apis 

 dorsata is the common, well-known species, found as far 



eastward as the Isle of Timore. Apis zonata is a little known 

 species, found only, I think, in the Island of Celebes. 



3. — The medium-sized bees, whose workers are more than 

 % of an inch and less than % of an Inch In length ; their nests 

 are always sheltered in hives, In hollow trees, in roofs of 

 houses, or some such places ; they build several parallel combs, 

 and consists of species, varieties and races, scattered over the 

 whole of the habitable old world. 



Apis indica, the smallest and one of the most distinct, Is 

 found in tropical Asia and the islands of the Malay Archipel- 

 ago. 



Apis nnicolor, small, dark in color, and distinct from 

 others. Is found in Madagascar. 



From Africa comes Apis adansonil ; from Egypt, Apis fas- 

 ciata ; from Europe, Apis melliBca ; from China, Apis sinensis. 

 Almost every country h;is a special variety or race ; sometimes 

 these, when brought together, inter-breed, but sometimes two 

 can be found in the same country which appear to keep dls-- 

 tant. 



Up this Sara.wak River are four species of Apis, viz : 

 1. — Ai'is Florka. — I saw this bee In Ceylon, it seemed 

 rare in the hill country,«but very common near Anuraadha- 

 poora, where, on their nests being disturbed, the bees fled 

 without stinging, so that Cinghalese boys have no difficulty In 

 eating their honey, and Mr. Davison tells me that the same Is 

 the case in the south of India; but here, altho the bees readi- 

 ly leave their combs, they will sting as well and more effectu- 

 ally than their size would lead one to expect. I have not yet 

 caught a drone here as the wet season is on, and there are no 

 drones now. The workers of these bees vary greatly in the 

 color of their abdomen, the most common thing is for the two 

 basal segments of the abdomen to be colored, and the others 

 black, but In the same nest will be found some without a bit 

 of color In the abdomen, and some in which nearly all the 

 segments of the abdomen are colored. Has Mr. Benton been 

 guHty of this atrocity, or will some amateur detective find an- 

 other culprit In this matter ? 



2. — Apis Dorsata. — I have not noticed any difference be- 

 tween this bee and the one like it which I saw in Ceylon, ex- 

 cept that in Ceylon it was quite absent from the flat country 

 round Anuraadhapoora, but here is common both in the low 

 country and in the hills. The workers usually have the two 

 basal segments of the abdomen colored, the other segments 

 black, except for a gray band quite at their base; but some 

 workers have the third segment colored, and some have the 

 whole upper surface of the abdomen colored. I saw quite a 

 number of these last on a nest I examined through a telescope, 

 but could see no drones, I suppose because It is the wet season, 

 yet swarms of these bees are frequently seen flying overhead. 

 3. — Apis Indica. — The commonest bee here, length of the 

 worker 7/16 of an inch ; these bees do not vary much in the 

 color of the abdomen, in the majority the scutellum Is colored, 

 but in many it is not. At this time of year there are no drones. 

 The bees do not store mu. h honey, they have no winter to go 

 through, and many enemii-s, su they prefer breeding and 

 swarming. They are very quiet bees, quieter than two colo- 

 nies of indica which I examined in Ceylon ; they can be easily 

 manipulated without smoke, but they readily take to the wing 

 — the queen as well as the workers — so that It is impossible to 

 drive them. Four times I have tried transferring to bar- 

 framed hive, and once the simple removal of the queen, In ev- 

 ery case they forsook the hive and all their brood a few days 

 after, but the wet season was on, and the quantity of their 

 brood not large. Amongst the enemies of these bees is a spe- 

 cies of Trigona, yellow and black, and small in size, this, find- 

 ing its way through the cracks in a Dyak hive, establishes its- 

 self in the upper regions of the comb, builds a wall between it- 

 self and the owner of the honey, behind which it eats the 

 honey, leaving the midrib of the comb quite bare, and In pla- 

 ces destroying this too. I opened two hives attackt by this 

 small bee, and in neither case did I find anyof theirbrood, but 

 the Dyaks thought they sometimes had brood in the hives, but 

 say that a few months after the Trigona comes, the Apis gen- 

 erally forsakes its hive. 



■i. — Aris Flava. — The proper name of this bee I do not 

 know, so for the present I will use the above name : the work- 

 ers are at once recognized by their bright yellow color ; their 

 bead is yellow, their thorax densely clothed with long yellow 

 hairs, and the ground color of the thorax is yellow, their length 

 is 9\15 of an inch, slightly larger, I think, than an English 

 bee. The drones are not very yellow, the queen not at all so 

 — she is but little larger than' a queen of indica. I have ex- 

 amined three nests of these bees, in one were drones hatching 

 and hatcht, the drone-cells, tho larger than the worker-cells, 

 and furnisht with the convex capping, were mixt irregularly 

 with the worker-cells, not together on a special portion of 

 comb. The colonies are small, and not quite so good-tempered 



