The Apis Indica of Fabricius, found in Pondicherry and Bengal, is of a smaller size than our domestic bee, if we may judge from the dimensions of the cells, which are only about three-fifths of the size of the European. This is probably the small species found in Ceylon. Latreille gives a figure and description of a piece of comb supposed to belong to this species; and taking into account the smallness of the cells, and the consequently greater number in a comb of the same area with one from our hives, he concludes the population of the Indian hive to consist of not less than 80,000 insects. Besides the Apis Indica, the naturalist just mentioned notices two other species met with in that region, one of which is one-third longer and stronger than the European race. This may be the same species with the second class described by Knox, as inhabiting Ceylon. The honey cells are much more capacious, and the produce considerably more abundant than from the last mentioned Indian species.
Honey-bees abound also in the whole of the Eastern Archipelago; but we have no certain account of their distinctive characters. We only know that they generally build on the boughs of trees, and that they are never domesticated or collected into hives. In fact, no attention is paid to them, farther than what is requisite to obtain their wax. This, we are told,[1] is an article of considerable importance in all the eastern islands, from whence it is exported in large oblong cakes to China, Bengal, and other parts of
- ↑ Marsden's Sumatra, p. 175.
