12 
MANUAL OF APICULTURE. 
THE COMMON EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. 
(Apis indica Fab.) 
The common bee of southern Asia is kept in very limited numbers 
and with a small degree of profit in earthen jars and sections of hol- 
low trees in portions of the British and Dutch East Indies. They are 
also found wild, and build when in this state in hollow trees and in 
rock clefts. Their combs, composed of hexagonal wax cells, are ranged 
parallel to each other like those of A. mellifera, but the worker brood 
cells are smaller than those of our ordinary bees, showing 36 to the 
square inch of surface instead of 29, while the comb where worker 
brood is reared, instead of having, like that of A. mellifera, a thickness 
of seven-eighths inch, is but five-eighths inch thick. 
(Fig. 1.) 
The workers. — The bodies of these, three- eighths 
inch long when empty, measure about one-half inch 
when dilated with honey. The thorax is covered 
with brownish hair and the shield or crescent between 
the wings is large and yellow. The abdomen is yel- 
low underneath. Above it presents a ringed appear- 
ance, the anterior part of each segment being orange 
yellow, while the posterior part shows bands of 
brown of greater or less width and covered with 
whitish-brown hairs ; tip black. They are nimble on 
foot and on the wing, and active gatherers. 
The queens. — The queens are large in proportion to 
their workers and are quite prolific ; color, leather or 
dark coppery. 
The drones. — These are only slightly larger than 
the workers; color, jet-like blue black, with no yellow, their strong 
wings showing changing hues like those of wasps. 
Manipulations with colonies of these bees are easy to perform if smoke 
be used, and though they are more excitable than our common hive bees, 
this peculiarity does not lead them to sting more, but seems rather 
to proceed from fear. The sting is also less severe. 
Under the rude methods thus far employed in the management of 
this bee no great yields of honey are obtained, some 10 or 12 pounds 
having been the most reported from a single hive. It is quite probable 
that if imported into this country it would do more. These bees would 
no doubt visit many small flowers not frequented by the hive bees we 
now have, and whose nectar is therefore wasted, but very likely they 
might not withstand the severe winters of the North unless furnished 
with such extra protection as would be afforded by quite warm cellars 
or special repositories. 
Fig. 1.— Worker cells 
of common East Indian 
honey bee (Apis i ndica) ; 
natural size. (Original.) 
