1908] The Honey Bee and Other Bees. 217 



in that it is only the perfect females which pass over the winter, 

 and in the spring each of these starts a new colony. Their 

 nests are for the most part rather clumsy, untidy structures, 

 the cells being irregular in shape and formed in a mass of pollen 

 and honey. Owing to the length of their tongues. Bumble 

 Bees are useful in pollenizing clover and were actually imported 

 into New Zealand for this very purpose some years ago. Closely 

 resembling the Buml:)le Bees are some species of Apathus, 

 which live in the same nests with them, but are parasites or 

 at any rate do not help in the work of the colony, and the 

 females have no collecting baskets on their legs for carrying 

 pollen. The large Carpenter Bee of Western Ontario, Xylocopa 

 virginica, which somewhat resembles a Bumble Bee, makes 

 tunnels half an inch in diameter and several inches long into 

 the solid wood of sheds, houses and other buildings. 



Very interesting insects are the Leaf-cutter Bees, {Mega- 

 chile) which make their nests of several cells each one from half 

 an inch to three-quarters of an inch in length, and neatly in- 

 cased in round pieces cut from the leaves of roses, maples and 

 other trees. Each of these cells contains a single egg and a mass 

 of "bee-bread", pollen and honey, sufficient to feed the young 

 larva to full growth. A small grotip of bees known as the 

 Nomads are parasitic in the nests of other bees. 



The large group of AndrenidcB consists of short-tongued 

 bees which dig out galleries beneath the surface of the ground. 

 Some are solitary, as in the case of the true Andrenas, in which 

 a single burrow may have four or five cells made by one female; 

 or there may be large colonies, as in the genus Halictus, in which 

 many females use the same common main shaft; but each has 

 her own little gallery running off from this. 



The Hymenoptera present so many features of extreme 

 interest, and they are of such importance in their r61e of parasites 

 as the main controllers of the undue increase of injtirious insects, 

 that the special study of any one of the groups would provide 

 a life work of the greatest fascination to anyone who would 

 devote time to it. I feel sure that all who have listened to Mr. 

 Selwyn to-night must V'C convinced that a study of any of these 

 insects would well repay them. 



/^V 



