440 



Handbook of Nature-Study 



rainbow tinted wings. In May, she selects some broken twig 

 of sumac, elder or raspberry, which gives her access to the 

 pith; this she at once begins to dig out, mouthful by mouth- 

 ful, until she has made a smooth tunnel several inches long; 

 she then gathers pollen and packs bee-bread in the bottom of 

 the cell to the depth of a quarter-inch, and then lays upon 

 it, a tiny white egg. She then brings back some of her chips 

 of pith and glues them together, making a partition about one- 

 tenth of an inch thick, which she fastens firmly to the sides of 

 the tunnel ; this is the roof for the first cell and the floor of 

 the next one; she then gathers more pollen, lays another egg, 

 and builds another partition. 



Thus she fills the tunnel, almost to the opening, with cells, 

 sometimes as many as fourteen ; but she always leaves a space 

 for a vestibule near the door, and in this she makes her home 

 while her family below her are growing up. 



The egg in the lowest cell of course hatches first; a little 

 bee grub issues from it and eats the bee-bread industriously 

 and grows by shedding his skin when it becomes too tight; 

 then he changes to a pupa and later to a bee resembling his 

 mother. But, though fully grown, he cannot get out into the 

 penter-bee^'her sunshine, for all his younger brothers and sisters are blocking 

 nest, cut open, the tunnel ahead of him ; so he simply tears down the partition 

 5 // o w i n g the above him and kicks the little pieces of it behind him, and bides 

 fa s time until the next youngest brother tears down the par- 

 tition above his head and pushes its fragments behind him 



a 



eldest larva at 



the ' routfzes t 



nearest the en- into the very face of the elder which, in turn, performs 



trance. similar act ; and thus, while he is waiting, he is kept more 



or less busy pushing behind him the broken bits of all the 

 partitions above him. Finally, the youngest gets his growth, and there 

 they all are in the tunnel, the broken partitions behind the hindmost at 

 the bottom of the nest, and the young bees packed closely together in a 

 row with heads toward the door. When we find the nest at this period, 

 we know the mother because her head is toward her young ones and her 

 back to the door. A little later, 011 some bright morning, they all come 

 out into the sunshine and flit about on gauzy, rainbow wings, a very 

 happy family, out of prison. 



But if the brood is a late one, the home must be cleaned out and used as 

 a winter nest, and still the loyal little mother bee stays true to her post; 

 she is the last one to enter the nest; and not until they are all housed 

 within, does she enter. It is easy to distinguish her for her poor wings are 

 torn and frayed with her long labor of building the nest, until they scarcely 

 serve to carry her afield ; but despite this she remains on guard over her 

 brood, for which she has worn out her own life. 



Nest of carpenter-wasp. 

 Comstock's Manual. 



