SPECIES AND VARIETIES OF SOCIAL BEES. 1 7 



are easily handled, even without smoke. From the quantity of 

 honey and wax present when these bees were obtained, it was evident 

 they are good gatherers. Owing to illness Mr. Benton failed to 

 take these bees to America for the purpose of acclimatisation. He 

 says : "These large bees would doubtless be able to get honey from 

 flowers whose nectaries are located out of reach of ordinary bees, 

 notably those of the red clover, now visited chiefly by humble bees 

 and which, it is thought, the East Indian bees might pollinate and 

 cause to produce seeds more abundantly. Even if no further 

 utility, they might prove an important factor in the production 

 of large quantities of excellent wax, now such an expensive 

 article." 



Apis indica is common in Ceylon and the southern parts of 

 Asia. It is domesticated in the East Indies by the Dutch and 

 British settlers, who keep them in habitations made of clay similar 

 to drain pipes, placed in trees and other elevated positions. 



The worker of this species of bee is |j inch long ; general colour, 

 a dark brown, almost black, with a yellow shield on the thorax 

 between the wings ; each segment of the dorsal plates of the abdo- 

 men is tinged with an orange colour. The queen is about one- 

 fourth larger than the workers, and is readily distinguished from 

 them, being of a dark coppery colour. The drones are not much 

 larger than the workers, but differ from them in colour, being of a 

 metallic blue; their wings in the sunlight constantly changing 

 colour — something like shot silk. They are very active, and are 

 said to be very gentle, while the pain resulting from their sting is 

 not so severe as that of A. dorsata. 



Apis trigona (our native bee) are natives of Australasia, and 

 extend into India. They are something less than our common 

 house fly; colour, black, with dirty white rings on the dorsal seg- 

 ments of the abdomen. They generally build in the hollows of 

 trees, and store their honey in irregularly-formed cells. It has an 

 agreeable flavour, but the storage of it by the bees is so small the 

 insect is not worth domesticating. 



Apis fiorea. — The tiny honey bee of India, one of the smallest 

 of the species known, even more slender than our native bee. In 

 colour, they are a blue black, one-third of the abdomen having a 

 bright orange tinge. Like A. dorsata, they build in the open air, 

 fastening their single comb to a twig in a bush, and, like all honey- 

 gathering bees, it hangs vertically. The comb seldom contains 

 more than about 20 inches of surface, usually about 7 inches long 



