Jan. 1908.] 53 Live Stock. 



delicate acidulated taste. Behind and attached along the walls of the nest are 

 found the ordinary bags of honey in the shape of plums. Finally, at the top 

 are oviform cells arranged in bunches and containing the workers' larvae. The 

 interior of the nest admirably clean and the partitions and revetments strongly 

 built. The bees nevertheless have other resources. If you put them in a glass 

 box with a cover which admits light, or which you open too often you will find 

 one fine day that the buildings are covered with a reddish or somewhat trans- 

 parent veil which only just allows you to see the shadows of the Trigones. For 

 these reasons the author declines to consider the variety a retrograde one. If the 

 descriptions of the Mellipones or Trigones of other lands are complete, the Indian 

 kind differs from all the others by the presence of the two kinds of honey, three kinds 

 of wax (differing not merely in colour but also in composition), and by the absence of 

 any fixed plan in the buildiug of the nests. The male is longer, 4-5 millimetres, and 

 is also distinguished by the following characteristic The abdomen is rounded in form 

 and consists of bands of alternate white and dark metallic brown. The antennae 

 consist of thirteen joints with the tip slightly curved. One finds them all the year 

 round, and it seems probable that they are the last to die in a swarm without a queen, 

 They know how to take their food themselves, how to arrange the different materials 

 brought by the workers, and, when it is a question of attacking an intruder, they are 

 often the first and the most determined. The queen even when not fecundated is 

 longer than the male, 55 millimeters. But once her abdomen is distended by the 

 development of the eggs she measures 9 millimetres, sometimes longer. The body is 

 black, a little thinner and longer than that of the worker. The forehead is entirely 

 bald, but the eggs are covered with long reddish down. The cells of the queens are 

 found in the middle of the bunches of workers' cells and are attached in the same 

 way. Those of the drones, however, are generally at the entrance of the hives and 

 are attached on two or three sides by broad traverses in the form of a trellis. These 

 cells are built from the beginning of the nest and are often the first of all. Their 

 form is rounded, while that of the queens' and workers' cells is oval. Length of the 

 workers' cells 3 millimetres ; the male cells 3 5 millimetres ; queen cells 5 millimetres. 

 The pollen is enclosed in special capsules of rounded form and 8 to 9 millimetres 

 diameter heaped up without order or else arranged in piles. The simultaneous 

 presence of several fertile queens is a quite ordinary occurrence with this Trigonus. 

 But the author believes that when the queens are missing the bees have as much 

 difficulty as other kinds in procuring them. He has thus seen the whole swarm 

 perish, the drones being the last survivors. When the swarm is weak in numbers 

 or the queen not very fertile or absent, or when they have large works to be done in 

 the nest, these little bees entirely close all the avenues for weeks together, and if, 

 during this time, matters cannot be settled satisfactorily, they try to drag on 

 existence without going out, liviug on the remainder of their provisions for as long as 

 they can. They swarm like other bees, but they have this peculiarity that they like 

 living near their own kind. The same tree trunk, the same crack in the wall are 

 often shared by as many colonies as there is room for. What is more, two or three 

 swarms settle in the same cavity as long as there are several distinct openings, all 

 confusion being avoided by solid partitions between the nests. Swarming probably 

 takes place every two months, while other bees even in the plains only swarm twice 

 or thrice a year. Length of the worker 4 millimetres. Body black metallic and bald 

 with the exception of forehead which is covered with whitish down. Abdomen 

 inclines to the triangular in form, wings strongly iridescent. Size of nest varies with 

 locality or numbers of swarm ; two or three examined were 45 centimetres and seven 

 or eight in diameter. First work in building is raising the colonnades or ribs 

 of the nest, all joined to one another and sometimes fixed to the top of the nest 

 from the beginning or else gradually raised always a little above the cella which 

 are attached to them. The young bees whitish in aspect for almost fifteen 



