194 The Book of Bugs. 



nest is to fetch along a gallon-jug partly filled with 

 water. Uncork it and set it near the nest, which is then 

 vigorously stirred up. Run like a whitehead then. The 

 bees come boiling out, buzzing, '' What's the matter out 

 here? Who threw that brick? Lemme at 'em. I'll fix 

 'em! ' One goes in the jug to explore, and her hum- 

 ming is so sonorous that the others think there is a fight 

 and go to her aid. The upshot is that they all drown, 

 and it is perfectly safe to steal all the victuals, kill all their 

 babies, and wreck their home. Who wouldn't rob and 

 murder and pillage if it was perfectly safe? Half the fun 

 of war is that you can do all these things and not get 

 arrested for it. 



There are other bees not so well known, solitary bees 

 and so uncivilized bees, and yet, for all that, pretty smart 

 in their way. Take Andrcaict, that scissors out circles 

 from rose-leaves; lines a tunnel with them all fitted neatly 

 together, kneads up a pudding of pollen and honey and 

 lays an egg on it; builds another cell above, and so on 

 up to the top. When the grub from the egg first laid 

 has finished its rations and is ready to come up into the 

 air and fly, how does it get out without disturbing those 

 above it? How would you contrive it, if you had it to 

 do? I'll be bold to say you couldn't plan it any better 

 than this little wild bee. The egg last laid hatches out 

 first and so on down, until the first one in is the last one 

 out. 



But to tell the story of the thirty thousand bees known, 

 to say nothing of the vast number uncatalogued, would 

 be too much. Let us get back to hive-bees and their 

 usefulness to flowers. 



Bees collect their fees as matrimonial agents, not only 

 in honey, but in pollen also. Plants produce a thousand 

 times more than they really need of these yellow, orange, 



