_The drones._--These are only slightly larger than the workers; color, jet-like blue black, with no yellow, their strong wings showing changing hues like those of wasps. 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. [Illustration: Fig 2.--Worker cells of tiny East Indian honey bee (_Apis florea_); natural size. (Original).] THE GIANT EAST INDIAN HONEY BEE. (_Apis dorsata_ Fab.)