EAST INDIAN BEES. 



13 





THE TINY EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. 

 (Apis florea Fab.) 



This bee, also a native of East India, is the smallest known species 

 of the genus. It builds in the open air, attaching a single comb to a 

 twig of a shrub or small tree. This comb is only about the size of a man's 

 hand and is exceedingly delicate, there being on 

 each side 100 worker cells to the square inch of 

 surface (figs. 2 and 3). The workers, more slen- 

 der than house flies, though longer bodied, are 

 blue-black in color, with the anterior third of 

 the abdomen bright orange. Colonies of these 

 bees accumulate so little surplus honey as to give 

 no hope that their cultivation would be profit- 

 able. 



THE GIANT EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. 



(Apis dorsata Fab.) 



FIG. 2. Worker cells of 



This large bee (Plate I, figs. 2 and 3), which *y East Indian honey bee 



. v (Apis florea); natural size. 



might not be inappropriately styled the Giant (Original). 

 East Indian bee, has its home also in the far East both on the con- 

 tinent of Asia and the adjacent islands. There are probably several 

 varieties, more or less marked, of this species, and very likely Apis 

 zonata Guer. of the Philippine Islands, reported to be even larger 

 than A. dorsata, will prove on further investigation to be only a variety 

 of the latter. All the varieties of these bees build huge combs of very 

 pure wax often 5 to G feet in length and 3 to 4 feet in width, which 

 they attach to overhanging ledges of rocks or to large limbs of lofty 

 trees in the primitive forests or jungles. When attached to limbs of 

 trees they are built singly and present much the same appearance as 

 those of the tiny East Indian bee, shown in the accompanying figure 

 (fig. 3). The Giant bee, however, quite in contradistinction to the other 

 species of Apis mentioned here, does not construct larger cells in which 

 to rear drones, these and the workers being produced in cells of the 

 same size. Of these bees long a sort of a myth to the bee keepers of 

 America and Europe strange stories have been told. It has been 

 stated that they build their combs horizontally, after the manner of 

 paper-making wasps; that they are so given to wandering as to make 

 it impossible to keep them in hives, and that their ferocity renders 

 them objects greatly to be dreaded. The first real information re- 

 garding these points was given by the author. He visited India in 

 1880-81 for the purpose of obtaining colonies of Apis dorsata. These 

 were procured in the jungles, cutting the combs from their original 



