300 RACES OF BEES. 



563. Apis dorsata, the largest bee known, lives in the 

 jungles of India. Mr. Benton attempted to import this bee 

 at great expense and danger, but only succeeded in bringing 

 one colony to Syria, where it died. Mr. Vogel tried also to 

 bring some of them to Germany without success. At all 

 events further attempts at importing or domesticating these 

 bees would be so expensive, that private enterprise will be 

 balked by the task. Besides Apis dorsata, two other kinds 

 exist in India, Apis florea and Apis Indica. The latter is 

 cultivated by the natives with good results. Both are smaller 

 than our common bee. 



563. Another race of bees,* the Melipone, is found in 

 Brazil and Mexico. More than twelve varieties of these have 

 been described, all without stings. 



Huber, in the beginning of the nineteenth century, received 

 a nest of them, but the bees died before reaching Geneva. Mr. 

 Drory, while at Bordeaux, France, was more successful. One 

 of his friends sent him a colony of Melipones, and he pub- 

 lished in the "Bucher du Sud-Ouest" some very curious facts 

 concerning them. The cells containing the stores of honey 

 and pollen are not placed near those intended for brood, but 

 higher in the hive; they are as large as pigeon eggs, and 

 attached in clusters to the walls of the hive. The brood cells 

 are placed horizontally in rows of several stories. The work- 

 ers do not nurse the brood, but fill the cells with food, on 

 which the queen laj's. The cells are then closed till the young 

 bees emerge from them. 



• These bees are scientifically classified as belonging to a different 

 genus ot Apidse. 



