Insect Adventures

rveying. When May came, once every week we left the gloomy schoolroom for the fields. It was a regular holiday. We did our surveying on

uently on his way, bend down, stand up again, look about and stoop once more, neglecting his straight line and his signals. Another, who was told to pic

a bit of straw. The surveying suf

ts on the pebbles in the fields. These nests contained honey; and my surveyors used to open them and empty the cells with a straw. The honey, although rather strong-flavored,

one, who builds by herself on walls or pebbles, and the Sicilian Mason-bee, who builds in colonies under sheds and roofs. Both use the same ki

y with corners, which, fitting one into the other, make a solid whole. She holds them together with layers of her mortar, sparingly applied. Thus the outside of her cell looks like a rough stone house; but the inside, which must be smooth in order not to hurt the Bee-b

underneath with pollen-dust. She dives headfirst into the cell; and for a few moments you see her jerk violently as she empties her crop of the honey-sirup. Afterwards, she comes out of the cell, only to go in again at once, but this time backwards. The Bee now brushes the lower side of her abdomen with her two hind-le

ee builds by degrees, working from the outside to the center. Two days at most appeared to me to be enough for everything, provided that no bad weather-rain or merely clouds-came to interrupt the work. Then a s

tain streams with gold supply he

y pellet, trowelful by trowelful, to the depth of about a third of an inch over the cluster of cells, which disappear entirely under the clay covering. When this is done, the nest has the shape of a rough dome, equal in size to half an orange. One

about to see what parts need repairing, tears off the strips of cocoon hanging from the walls, removes the fragments of clay that fell from the ceiling when the young Bee of the preceding year bored her way through it, gives a coat of mortar to parts that need it, mends t

s existence, never work, and do not return to the clay houses except for a brief moment to woo the ladies; they have nothing to do with the housekeeping or the new nests. What they want is the nectar in the flower-cups, not mortar to build with. There are left the sisters, who will be the mothers of the ne

OF THE

Mason-bee's home, and makes up her mind, weak and small as she is, to introduce her eggs into this cement fortress. Everything is most carefully closed: a layer of rough plaster, at least two fifths of an i

hes the lid of the cell and gnaws it till she catches sight of the honey. It is a slow and painful process, in which the feeble Wasp wears

, side by side with the Mason-bee's, she lays a number of her own eggs. The honey-food will be

earth; she makes it into mortar by wetting it with saliva; and with the pellets thus prepared she fills up the entrance shaft as neatly as if she were a master-mason. The mor

Bee-baby will starve to death. The Wasp's

RSELF TURN

inds the cell closed when she returns home. A neighbor Bee has taken the opportunity to lay her eggs

ell. You've stolen my house; I'll steal yours." She goes to another Bee's dwelling and patiently gnaws the mortar lid or door. When she has made an opening, she stands bending over the cell, her head ha

. Then, although there is already plenty of honey in the cell, she adds more from her own stock, lays her own egg, and closes up the house again. The lid is repaired to look like new

L VISITORS

hat she sometimes does even worse, and eats up the grub itself, as well as its honey. Then there are the Osmia-bees and the Leaf-cutting Bees, who make themselves very much at home in the Bees' houses, when they get a chance, keeping out the real owners; and there are also three f

ords mean the first stage of the insect after leaving the egg, when it looks like a little worm), which, for some reason or other, could not break through their hard prisons; of honey which has not been eaten and h

ees; the third, which is quite a good-looking worm, with a black head and the rest of its body a pretty pink, takes care of the spoiled honey. This worm turns into a Beetle in a red dress with blue ornaments, whom you may ofte

ar where they camp out. Spiders make their homes in the blind alleys which used to be cells, and weave white-satin screens, behind which they lie in wait for passing game. The Hunting-wasps arrange nooks with earthen embankments or clay pa