v] BEES 65 



in garden paths and lawns, where it throws up little 

 mounds of fine soil from its tunnel. It often occurs 

 in large numbers quite suddenly during the month of 

 April. These individuals which thus appear in the 

 warm days of early spring have just hatched out from 

 the burrows made in the previous year by their 

 parents: the burrows are not noticeable until the 

 bees emerge because they have been filled in with 

 earth. The new arrivals in turn set to work making 

 fresh burrows for their own families. Each female 

 soon after mating digs her tunnel some six to ten or 

 twelve inches into the earth : from the sides of the 

 main shaft she excavates short side galleries, and 

 fashions each of these into the form of a cell which 

 she provisions with a mixture of honey and pollen for 

 the benefit of the larva which will shortly issue from 

 the egg laid in the cell. Having completed and sealed 

 up one cell, she proceeds to the next, and so on until 

 the burrow is nearly filled to the surface. Hence if 

 one or two females of A.fulva happen to take a fancy 

 to a particular path or piece of lawn in one season, 

 there may issue in the following year so enormous a 

 number of young as to excite wonder as to their 

 origin. The white grub that emerges from the egg 

 is full fed by midsummer and then becomes a resting 

 pupa, similar to that of a wasp already described. As 

 happens with several other subterranean pupae, e.g. 

 cockchafer and stagbeetle, the imago stage is reached 



L. B. W. 5 



