RACES. 
627 
with brown, triangular spots ; but the colours are 
darker in the hill varieties than in those inhabitating 
the plains. The comb has 4J cells to the inch, and 
no drone-comb, as distinct from worker, is constructed ; 
and, as might be supposed from this, the drone is 
the same size and shape as the worker, excepting 
that it has the eyes meeting above, as in the drone 
of Apis mellifica. The question of crossing with Apis 
dorsata has already received notice (page 315). All 
attempts at permanently hiving it have to the present 
been abortive. In many parts it migrates regularly 
at certain seasons, its habit being to leave its comb 
on failure of pasturage, reminding us of the “vaga- 
bond^’ swarms (page 168) of Apis mellifica. 
Apis fiorea is interesting as being the smallest 
known species of the genus, while its drone is, 
relatively to the worker, the largest, and most differen- 
tiated from the female and worker. Its worker-comb, 
of nine cells to the inch, is beautifully regular. The 
drone-cells are thick on the sides, six to the inch, 
and circular in cross-section, adding, if it were needed, 
confirmation to the theory that the hexagonal form of 
the bee cell is due, not to design on the part of the 
bee, but to crowding together of cells which, if sepa- 
rately constructed, would be cylindrical. 
Several other varieties are known to naturalists ; 
but, as these generally give no promise of being, 
under any circumstances, reducible to domestication, 
they are of little interest to practical apiarians, and 
so are here left out of view. 
Beyond the confines of our Indian empire bees 
exist, but the accounts given by travellers, through 
2 S 2 
