Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . Mason-Bee and Nest—Fvom. Reaumur. Mining-Bees. A very small sort of bees {JlndrencB)^ many ofthem not larger than a house-fly, dig in the groundtubular galleries little wider than the diameter oftheir own bodies. Samouelle says, that all of themseem to prefer a southern aspect; but we have foundthem in banks facing the east, and even the above the spot where we have describedthe mason-bees quarrying the clay, we observed seve-ral holes,
Natural history of insects : comprising their architecture, transformations, senses, food, habits--collection, preservation and arrangement . Mason-Bee and Nest—Fvom. Reaumur. Mining-Bees. A very small sort of bees {JlndrencB)^ many ofthem not larger than a house-fly, dig in the groundtubular galleries little wider than the diameter oftheir own bodies. Samouelle says, that all of themseem to prefer a southern aspect; but we have foundthem in banks facing the east, and even the above the spot where we have describedthe mason-bees quarrying the clay, we observed seve-ral holes, about the diameter of the stalk of a to-bacco-pipe, into which those little bees were seenpassing. The clay here was very hard; and onpassing a straw into the hole as a director, and diggingdown for six or eight inches, a very smooth circulargallery was found, terminating in a thimble-shapedhorizontal chamber, almost at right angles to theentrance, and nearly twice as wide. In this chamber. Cell of Mining-Bee (Andrcnn),—About half the natural size. 44 INSECT ARCHITECTURE, there was a ball of bright yellow pollen, as round asa garden pea, and rather larger, upon which a smallwhite grub was feeding; and to which the motherbee had been adding, as she had just entered a minutebefore with her thighs loaded with pollen. That itwas not the male, the load of pollen determined; forthe male has no apparatus for collecting or trans-porting it. The whole labour of digging the nestand providing food for the young is performed bythe female. The females of the solitary bees haveno assistance in their tasks. The males are idle; andthe females are unprovided with labourers, such asthe queens of the hive command. Reaumur mentions that the bees of this sort, whoseoperations he had observed, piled up at the entranceof their galleries the earth which they had scoopedout from the interior; and when the grub was hatched,and properly provided with food, the earth was againemployed to close up
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Keywords: ., bookcentury1800, bookidnaturalhistoryof01bos, booksubjectinsects
