90 J. C. Douglas — Tlie Hive-Bees indujenoits to India [T^o. 1, 



The principal points on which information is required with refer- 

 ence to the above two varieties. of A. melUfica are : — proneness to breed 

 drones and to swarm, weight of stocks, liability to moth and other parasites 

 and to disease, liability to have laying workers, liability to suffer from 

 robbing, prolificness and longevity of queens, sensitiveness in breeding to 

 variations of honey-supply, whether easily manipulated, i. e., if excitable 

 and if readily subdued, if they keep on their combs or fall off readily, 

 and if they are readily shaken off, what quantity of surplus honey they 

 collect. Persons who are favourably situated for obtaining information 

 on any of these points have it in their power greatly to further the 

 interests of Indian apiculture. 



Many persons have speculated on the origin of A. melUjioa, whether 

 it originated in a cold, in a temperate, or in a warm climate, under what 

 conditions, and from what kind of progenitor, it was developed ; but 

 based as it was on data furnished by a single species their reasoning must, 

 it is obvious, have been very far from conclusive. The different species 

 and varieties found in India may afford data most pertinent to the 

 questions at issue, and, as the hive- bee has been so widely and closely 

 studied, a complete knowledge of its different sjpecies and their distribu- 

 tion would be of general biological interest. 



Distribution. — Dr. A. Gerstacker concludes, from an examination 

 of his specimens (1862), that the Southern Italian variety of J., mellifica 

 extends to the islands and mainland of Asia Minor and the Cau- 

 casus, and the Egyptian variety over Syria and Arabia, through imper- 

 ceptably minute variations in the Himalayas, on to China ; he had only 

 one specimen from the Himalayas and one from China for examination. 

 Herr F. Morawitz kindly informed me (1882) that in Asiatic Russia 

 the hive-bee is only found in Siberia and Transcaucasia, in the eastern 

 territory the form common to Northern Europe, in the latter only Apis 

 ligustica. The honey-bee has not been brought from Central Asia by any 

 Russian traveller ; nor has Trschewalsky found it in any of the Chinese 

 provinces visited by him. Efforts had been made to introduce it into 

 Taschkend, but up to the date of Herr Morawitz's letter without success. I 

 may state that attempts to introduce the hive-bee into Australia have repea- 

 tedly failed, — as they have done in the case of India, — but ultimately pro- 

 ved successful. The variety of A. ligustica referred to by Herr Morawitz is 

 no doubt that found in Southern Italy and distinguished by the yellow scu- 

 tellum ; the Hazara bee has this character. I defer discussing the relations 

 of the Indian species {A. indica and A. mellifica) to the European species, 

 until I have made a fall examination of the specimens I have collected. 



In A.fioreay we have the worker-cells very much smaller than the 

 drone-cells, we find the small cells beautifully regular and quite liexago- 



