The East Indies and the Philippine Islands seem to be under special obligations to astonish the world in everything, and in order to keep pace with their reputations have produced honey-bees of three sizes, one of which is the smallest honey-bee known, and another the largest. The smaller variety is so diminutive that one square inch of comb contains one hundred cells on each side; the entire comb, as it hangs from the twig of a small tree or bush, is only about the size of a man's hand. The workers are a little longer, but somewhat more slender than our common house-fly, and are blue-black in color, with the exception of the anterior third of the abdomen, which is bright orange. The giant East Indian honey-bee, which is probably identical with the giant of the Philippines, is the largest known species of the genus. They are about one-third larger than our common bee and build huge combs of very pure wax which are attached to overhanging ledges of rock or to the limbs of large trees. These combs are often five or six feet in length, three or four feet in width and from one and one-half to six inches in thickness. The amount of honey that they gather in the course of a season is enormous and it has been suggested that if introduced into this country they might be of immense value as they would doubtless visit mainly the plants which our honey-bees could not well gather from, such as red-clover, and thus increase the amount of clover seed as well as the quantity of honey already produced. Up to date, however, it is not proven that they will live in hives or that they can live at all in this climate; the latter being regarded as extremely doubtful by some of our best informed bee-men. Not the least interesting thing in an apiary is the honey extractor, consisting of a large can inside of which a light metal basket is made to revolve by means of a simple gearing. The frames containing the full comb are placed in this basket, the caps being shaved off. After several rapid revolutions the comb is found to be empty and is then returned to the hives to be refilled by the bees. The queen bee is about one-third larger than the worker and is the mother and monarch of the hive. Queens are sometimes raised by bee-keepers for sale, especially by those who have an improved strain of a certain species, or a new and desirable species of bee. When the bee-keeper gets a mail order for a queen he procures a mailing-cage, which is a small box-like cage covered with wire screen and cloth, in one end of which he places a supply of food, the other end being occupied by a ventilator. The queen and from eight to twelve workers, as royal attendants, are then placed in the cage, the wire-screen and cloth covers carefully wrapped around them, the address written, a one cent stamp affixed and her royal highness is ready for her trip across a continent, or, with additional postage, around the world.