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.
THE TINY EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE.
(Apis florea Fab.)
This bee, also a native of East India, is the smallest known species of the genus. It builds in the open air, attaching a single comb to a twig of a shrub or small tree. This comb is only about the size of a man's hand and is exceedingly delicate, there being on each side 100 worker cells to the square inch of surface (figs. 2 and 3). The workers, more slender than house flies, though longer bodied, are blue-black in color, with the anterior third of the abdomen bright orange. Colonies of these bees accumulate so little surplus honey as to give no hope that their cultivation would be profitable.
Fig 2.—Worker cells of tiny East Indian honey bee (Apis florea); natural size. (Original).
THE GIANT EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE.
(Apis dorsata Fab.)
This large bee ([Plate I, figs. 2 and 3]), which might not be inappropriately styled the Giant East Indian bee, has its home also in the far East—both on the continent of Asia and the adjacent islands. There are probably several varieties, more or less marked, of this species, and very likely Apis zonata Guér. of the Philippine Islands, reported to be even larger than A. dorsata, will prove on further investigation to be only a variety of the latter. All the varieties of these bees build huge combs of very pure wax—often 5 to 6 feet in length and 3 to 4 feet in width, which they attach to overhanging ledges of rocks or to large limbs of lofty trees in the primitive forests or jungles. When attached to limbs of trees they are built singly and present much the same appearance as those of the tiny East Indian bee, shown in the accompanying figure ([fig. 3]). The Giant bee, however, quite in contradistinction to the other species of Apis mentioned here, does not construct larger cells in which to rear drones, these and the workers being produced in cells of the same size. Of these bees—long a sort of a myth to the bee keepers of America and Europe—strange stories have been told. It has been stated that they build their combs horizontally, after the manner of paper-making wasps; that they are so given to wandering as to make it impossible to keep them in hives, and that their ferocity renders them objects greatly to be dreaded. The first real information regarding these points was given by the author, lb 4 visited India in 1880-81 for the purpose of obtaining colonies of Apis dorsata. These were procured in the jungles, cutting the combs from their original attachments, and it was thus ascertained that (as might have been expected in the case of any species of Apis), their combs are always built perpendicularly; also that the colonies placed in frame hives and permitted to fly freely did not desert these habitations and that, far from being ferocious, these colonies were easily handled by proper precautions, without even the use of smoke. It was also proved by the quantity of honey and wax present that they are good gatherers. The execution at that time of the plan of bringing these bees to the United States was prevented only by severe illness contracted in India.