372 The Honey-Makers 



perpendicular banks^ and the clay is required to build up a 

 wall so as to close the gap, with the exception of a small 

 orifice for their own entrance and exit. Most kinds of 

 Meliponae are in this way masons as well as workers in 

 wax and pollen gatherers. One little species, not more 

 than two lines long, builds a neat tubular gallery of clay, 

 kneaded with some viscid substance, outside the entrance 

 to its hive, besides blocking up the crevice in the tree 

 within which it is situated. The mouth of the tube is 

 trumpet-shaped, and at the entrance a number of the 

 pigmy bees are always stationed, apparently acting as 

 sentinels. 



" It is remarkable that none of the American bees have 

 attained that high degree of architectural skill in the con- 

 struction of their comb which Is shown by the European 

 hive-bee. The wax cells of the Meliponae are generally 

 oblong, showing only an approximation to the hexagonal 

 shape in places where several of them are built in contact. 



" A hive of the Mehponae Fasciculatae, which I saw opened, 

 contained about two quarts of pleasantly-tasted liquid honey. 

 The bees, as already remarked, have no sting, but they bite 

 furiously when their colonies are disturbed. I found forty- 

 five species of these bees in different parts of the country ; 

 the largest was half an inch in length ; the smallest were 

 extremely minute, some kinds being not more than one- 

 twelfth of an inch in size. These tiny fellows are often 

 very troublesome in the woods, on account of their famil- 

 iarity ; they settle on one's face and hands, and, in crawling 

 about, get into the eyes and mouth, or up the nostrils.", 



Another genus of stingless, honey-making bees — the 

 Trigona — is found in tropical America as well as in the 

 tropics of Asia and Africa. There are about a hundred 

 species in these two genera, and their combs are very dif- 

 ferent from those of the hive-bee, containing as they do 



