500 



GLEANINGS IN BEE CULTURE. 



July 1. 



it is unless it is one or more queens of the 

 giant race. One thing is certain : If we get 

 them here alive they will be clipped ; and if 

 the bees getaway they will not have the means 

 of reproducing iheir kind. If they do not 

 know enough to come back to their queen they 

 will have to go — that is, providing we can not 

 catch them. — Ed.] 



GENUS APIS. 



The Various Bees of the World Compared. 



BY F. W. L. SLADEN. 



F It seems strange that the subject of the near 

 relatives of our domestic honey-bee — their 

 number, distribution, habits, and the points in 

 which they differ, from our bees, should be so 



partially explored ? The habits and instincts 

 of the sister-species of our domestic honey-bee 

 should give us some idea of its parentage, and 

 of the successive phases through which it has 

 passed to make it the wonderfully interesting 

 and useful insect we find it to-day. Any infor- 

 mation that can be collected should prove of 

 great service in making attempts at improving 

 the races of honey-bees now generally cultivat- 

 ed in America and Europe. For this reason 

 this subject i-;, to my mind, one of great im- 

 portance and interest to ever}' bee-keeper. 



The genus Apis, to which our honey-bee be- 

 longs, is now known to cont tin at least two 

 different and quite distinct species, besides 

 Apis mellifica, our common domestic honey- 

 bee. These are Apis dorsata, Fab., and Apis 

 florea. Fab. These two species are closely al- 

 lied to one another, and together they consti- 



A NATIVE NEPAULESE BEE-KEEPER OF THE EASTERN HIMALAYAS WITH A FRAME OF HIM- 

 ALAYAN BEES. PHOTOGRAPHED BY F. W. L. SLADEN. 



little known as it is at the present day, and 

 should claim so small a share of interest among 

 bee-keepers generally, especially as it ought to 

 throw an important and independent side-light 

 on the whole question of bee-keeping. No one 

 will surely deny that an advantage would be 

 gained by the introduction of a superior breed 

 of bees into our hives, if one should ever be 

 discovered, and who is to say there is no supe- 

 rior race while the field remains to-day only 



tute a section of the genus Apis which is quite 

 separate from A . mellifica. They resemble A. 

 mellifica by living in colonies which consist of 

 one queen, or perfect female ; many drones, or 

 males ; and very many workers, or sterile fe- 

 males, and they build a perpendicular comb 

 of wax consisting of hexagonal cells formed 

 on either side of a central mid-rib. Many de- 

 tails in their domestic economy are probably 

 very much the same as those of A. mellifica. 



