626 
BEES AND BEE-KEEPING. 
destroying the bees periodically. Apis indica is likely, 
especially in the wild state, to suffer badly from the 
moth, enormous numbers of wild colonies perishing 
every season from this cause and want of stores ; for 
it is noticed that, in Lower Bengal, Apis indica collects 
very little, if any, surplus honey, but that the surplus 
is surprisingly increased by domestication, and bears 
no fixed relation to that which would be produced by 
the same bee naturally. 
The Bhootan bee* is, probably, specifically distinct 
from Apis indica^ than which it is a good deal larger. 
All the bees, including the queen, are very dark, with 
white hair. Their worker-comb has 5J cells, drone- 
comb 4^ cells, to the inch. They are exceedingly 
mild in temper — so much so, that the guards retreat 
immediately, instead of offering a defence — and have 
been kept, experimentally, by Europeans, in frame 
hives, and have swarmed naturally. In the instances 
in which worker-comb of Apis mellijica was supplied, 
it was used for raising drones, and so these stocks 
yielded scarcely any surplus. It does not resist the 
ravages of the moth. Both these bees are incapable 
of crossing with Apis mellijica. 
Apis dorsata (normally building under boughs, but 
frequently in caves) is the giant of the genus ApiSy 
the smallest of its workers being quite equal in size 
to the largest of the queens of any of the European 
races. There are several varieties of this bee 
scattered over India, Sumatra, and Java, the larger 
being found in the hills. The thorax is black 
beneath, with reddish hairs ; the upper part yellowish, 
* “Hive Bees Indigenous to India,” by J. C. Douglas. 
