40 
Elementary Manual of Zoology. 
Amongst social bees the community consists of a female or queen, 
a number of males or drones, and a host of aborted females, which are 
known as workers and which do all the labour of the bive. The honey 
is collected by the workers from flowers. It is said to be partially 
acted upon in the stomach of the worker and thence regurgitated into 
the cells. The young are fed by the workers upon a mixture of honey 
and pollen. The wax is excreted in thin plates from glands which are 
situated on the ventral surface of the body between the segments. 
The comb is built up by the workers in the shape of more or less regu- 
lar hexagonal chambers, The cells are used partly for storing honey 
and pollen and partly for rearing Jarve. Only one adult queen is to 
be found at one time in the nest. When a queen emerges she takes 
flight and is fertilised by adrone. She then returns to the nest, 
where she lays her eggs, Inthe meantime the old queen leaves the 
nest witha number of old workers to found a new colony, thus 
constituting what is known as a swarm, 
Amongst the social bees the students should notice Apis dorsata, 
Apis mellifica, Apis indica, Apis florea, and Trigona sp, Apis 
dorsata is the large jungle honey-bee, which builds a single comb in 
the open attached to tree branches or rocks, It can be distinguished 
by its size and the elongation of its body. Both the honey and wax 
produced by it are collected for sale, and in some cases yield a small 
return to the Forest Department, though the honey is somewhat poor. 
The bee stings badly, and from its habit of attacking en masse is oc- 
casionally dangerous to man. Specimens are preserved in the School 
Museum, dpis mellifica is the common European hive bee. A 
variety of it is cultivated in the hills of the Punjab and Kashmir, 
where it yields a Jarge amount of excellent honey. It is somewhat 
smaller than Apis dorsata and can readily be distinguished by its 
shorter and thicker build. Ap7s zxdica is the common bee of the plains. 
It isalmost exactly like Ap7s melizfica in shape and coloration, but 
can be distinguished by its smaller size. It builds its combs in cracks 
and crannies, and is said to be occasionally kept in a state of partial 
domestication in earthen pots or in holes made for the purpose in 
house walls, but it yields very little honey. Specimens of it are pre- 
served in the School Museum. pis florea is much smaller even 
than the Apis indica. It may be recognised by the reddish colour 
of the basal segments of the abdomen. It builds a small single comb 
in the open upon the branches of trees, and stores very little honey. 
It is mimicked in a wonderful manner by a solitary bee of the genus 
Sphecodes, which is parasitic in its cells. Besides the various species 
above enumerated of the genus Apis, there are in India several species 
of the genus Trigona, a group of small stingless bees which build in 
old walls. They form their nest chiefly of chewed. resin, The honey 
