359 
Apis florea, the smallest of the genus, with slender, orange-banded 
body, builds in the more open country of India, attaching a single tiny 
comb to the twig of some small shrub. The worker cells are 81 to the 
square inch of surface, the drone cells 36. 
Apis dorsata, the Giant Bee of India, attaches its mammoth combs to 
the limbs of tall forest trees or to overhanging ledges of rock, generally 
building a single comb as much as six feet long and two or three feet 
wide. Great quantities of wax and honey are obtained from this bee 
by the bee-hunters in India and the islands southeast of Asia. It has 
not been permanently domesticated, nor is it certain that it can be. 
The workers of this species are about the size of the queens of Apis 
mellifica, or from seven-eighths of an inch to an inch long. The bodies 
of the bees are slender and wasp-like, and beautifully marked across 
the abdomen with bright orange bands. 
While the different species of the genus Apis thus differ in size, 
coloration, temperament, and habit, there are comparatively slight 
Fig. 25.- Modifications of the hind legs of different bees : a, Anthopkora; b, Melissodes; 
c, Perdita; d, Nomaua; e, Agapostemon ; /, Xomia — all enlarged. (From Riley.) 
variations in structure; a necessary inference for every zoologist. But 
if we study the other species of the family Apida3 we shall find every 
variation, and obtain a very good idea of how the special organs in 
Apis may have been evolved and perfected from simpler organs in 
other genera. This may be illustrated by a few sketches of some of 
the more important structures, as, for instance, the polliniferous organs 
and the wax-producing apparatus. (See Figs. 23, 24, and 25.) The fig- 
ures very well illustrate the fact that the modification of structure and 
hairy vestiture, which facilitates the collection and transportation of 
pollen, while exhibited perhaps in the greatest perfection in the Hive 
Bee, is nevertheless an evolution from similar structures possessed by 
other species of social bees, such as the Meliponse and Bombi. and still 
more remotely from such as are possessed by the solitary bees. 
2953— ko. 5 2 
