AUSTRALIAN BEES. 



SPECIES. 



Here ! look at the flowers on the Gum trees, just 

 covered with l^ees — honey-liees. The bushman divides 

 them into two classes, Black bees, and "Eyetalion. " The 

 bee-farmer recognises them as Black bees, "H^'brids" 

 and Italians, rarely he notices a Cyprian or a Carniolan 

 l^ee. There are a great many varieties, but they are not 

 all honey-bees.* 



In Australasia, the representatives of the order are 

 limited to the four already mentioned. The scientist 

 calls tlieni Apis mellipca of the order Hyinenoptera; this 

 latter word really means four-winged. In this way the 

 bee is distingiiished from the fly, which has two wings. 



ANATOMICAL STRUCTURE. 



Clenerally speaking, those insects that live in crowded 

 communities of cell-like structure, are provided by Nature 

 with four wings that can in emergency be folded over one 

 another, and so occupy less space. Witness a hone}' -bee 

 "crowding" itself into a cell of comb. Flies do not 

 require the wing area and power so essential to the bee, 

 hence Nature's gift of two wings. In flight the wings of 

 the honey-bee are "hooked" together on the edges, and 

 so present two planes to the air instead of four; bees 

 are thus enabled to travel very fast during working hours. 

 The flight of the bee has been investigated by some able 

 men, and Landois states the wing vibrations to equal 

 those of a tuning fork, ranging between A and C of the 



'^Author's note — The small Native bees— no larger than flies— found in Australia are 

 Apis trigona. 



