Bee-Culture at Present 371 



From Spix's " Travels in Brazil " we get the following : 



" Extraordinarily rich is the Sertao in numerous kinds of 

 bees, which nest partly in the trees, partly in the earth. 

 Their products in honey and wax are so important that 

 many Sertanejos support themselves by the business of 

 gathering the same." 



A very interesting account of the bees of South America 

 comes from Bates' " Naturalist on the River Amazons," 

 this gifted naturahst and delightful writer having spent 

 many years in South America collecting and observing 

 the various forms of life there. 



" The Meliponae in tropical America," he tells us, "take 

 the place of the true Apides, to which the European hive- 

 bees belong, and which are here unknown ; they are gener- 

 ally much smaller insects than the hive-bees, and have no 

 sting. The M. Fasciculata is about a third shorter than the 

 Apis MeUifica ; its colonies are composed of an immense 

 number of individuals. The workers are generally seen 

 collecting pollen in the same way as other bees, but great 

 numbers are employed gathering clay. The rapidity and 

 precision of their movements whilst thus engaged are won- 

 derful. They first scrape the clay with their mandibles ; 

 the small portions gathered are then cleared by the anterior 

 paws and passed to the second pair of feet, which in their 

 turn convey them to the large foliated expansions of the 

 hind shanks, which are adapted normally in bees, as every 

 one knows, for the collection of pollen. The middle feet 

 pat the pellets of mortar on the hind legs to keep them in 

 a compact shape as the particles are successively added. 



" The little hodsmen soon have as much as they can carry, 

 and they then fly off. I was for some time puzzled to 

 know what the bees did with the clay ; but I had afterwards 

 plenty of opportunity for ascertaining. They construct 

 their combs in any suitable crevice in trunks of trees or 



