EAST INDIAN BEES. 13 
THE TINY EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. 
(Apis florea Fab.) 
This bee, also a native of East India, is the smallest known species 
of the genus. It builds in the open air, attaching a single comb to a 
twig ofashruborsmalltree. This comb is only about the size of a man’s 
hand and is exceedingly delicate, there being on 
each side 100 worker cells to the square inch of 
surface (figs. 2 and 3). The workers, more slen- 
der than house flies, though longer bodied, are 
blue-black in color, with the anterior third of 
the abdomen bright orange. Colonies of these 
bees accumulate so little surplus honey as to give 
no hope that their cultivation would be profit- 
able. 
THE GIANT EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. 
Cra dorsal baby) Fic. 9 -Wobker cells of 
This large bee (Plate I, figs. 2 and 3), which (47.5 gercay, nateral ane 
might not be inappropriately styled the Giant (Original). 
East Indian bee, has its home also in the far East—both on the con- 
tinent of Asia and the adjacent islands. There are probably several 
varieties, more or less marked, of this species, and very likely Apis 
zonata Guér. of the Philippine Islands, reported to be even larger 
than A. dorsata, will prove on further investigation to be only a variety 
of the latter. AJ] the varieties of these bees build huge combs of very 
pure wax—often 5 to 6 feet in length and 3 to 4 feet in width, which 
they attach to overhanging ledges of rocks or to large limbs of lofty 
trees in the primitive forests or jungles. When attached to limbs of 
trees they are built singly and present much the same appearance as 
those of the tiny East Indian bee, shown in the accompanying figure 
(fig. 3). The Giant bee, however, quite in contradistinction to the other 
species of Apis mentioned here, does not construct larger cells in which 
to rear drones, these and the workers being produced in cells of the 
same size. Of these bees—long a sort of a myth to the bee keepers of 
America and Europe—strange stories have been told. It has been 
stated that they build their combs horizontally, after the manner of 
paper-making wasps; that they are so given to wandering as to make 
it impossible to keep them in hives, and that their ferocity renders 
them objects greatly to be dreaded. The first real information re- 
garding these points was given by the author. He visited India in 
1880-81 for the purpose of obtaining colonies of Apis dorsata. These 
were procured in the jungles, cutting the combs from their original 
