270 CLARENCE P. CUSTER AND CHARLES H. HICKS. 



To Nest i : Then to Nest 2: 



6 6 



4-. 5 



9 o 



(Then a male arrives and they mate while she has a 

 stick in her mandibles (60 seconds). He leaves and she 

 continues her work after carrying this stick to nest I.) 



23 o 



(She flies to flowers of Grindelia several yards away, 

 and feeds there for ten minutes; then she returns to 

 work as before.) 



5 i 



5 o 



Here she flies to the fields. One of the sticks is one 

 and one half inches long (c). 



The following account shows this habit in another individual: 

 Bee D goes into nest 3 for fifty-five seconds. After going out 

 and in several times, she leaves, flies slowly over to nest 4, 

 nine inches away, and goes in at once. Presently she leaves this 

 nest and flies to some nearby flowers to feed. In one minute she 

 arrives at nest 3, leaves after a few seconds, and flies slowly over 

 to nest 4 which she enters. After one half minute, she leaves, 

 feeds for five minutes and goes into nest 3. She comes out, three 

 quarters of a minute later, goes into 4 and spends one half minute 

 there before leaving for the fields to feed (c). 



It has not been observed whether or not D. sayi digs the hole 

 for its nest and so it can not be proved that one bee has attended 

 to two holes from the first. However, the proximity of the nests 

 to one another indicates that it does the former. It might easily 

 be that each summer, when the colony began to nest, there 

 was but one bee to each hole. Then when some of the builders 

 died, before completing their nests, others of the colony would 

 appropriate these deserted nests and finish them along with 

 their own. The following examples are taken from the notes 

 to give evidence that temporarily deserted nests of D. sayi are 

 readily taken over by other members of the colony: 



Example i. 



Sept. 14, 1926. While bee /, the owner of nest 8, is in the 

 field, another member of the colony comes and goes into the 

 nest. Thirty-five seconds later, bee I arrives and goes into 



