6o The Irish Naturalist. 



WITH THE WII.D BEES IN GI.ENCUIvI.EN. 



BY H. K. gore: CUTHBERT. 

 (Read before the Dublin Naturalists' Field Club, February i2tli, 1895.) 



GlknculIvEN, on the boundary between the counties of 



Dublin and Wicklow, might be described in the poet's phrase 



as '* A populous solitude of bees and birds, 



And fairy- formed and many-coloured things" ; — 



in soberer language it is a very interesting valley which the 

 Cookstown river in recent, and more violent agencies in former 

 times, have scooped out of the granite wall of South Dublin 

 and the drift overlying its hollows. The geologist and the 

 botanist ma}^ spend a profitable day in Glencullen. Let us 

 visit it for the nonce as entomologists, and, rambling thither 

 some sunny afternoon in June, take note of the wild bees that 

 we meet. We can watch their doings, study their habits, and 

 thereby teach ourselves something of their economy and the 

 complex w^orkings of their instinct. 



At starting, leaving the woods at the Enniskerry end of the 

 "len, we notice how the air seems full of bees. Their brisk hum 

 is everywhere, they seem to hover over every bush and flow^er, 

 and to rise up before us in protest as we brush through the 

 grass. There is a mossy bank just before us where the com- 

 motion seems keenest. This is the capital city of a humble-bee, 

 Bombus vmsconim^ commonly called the Carder, and one of 

 the best known of its tribe. The nest is not yet complete, 

 for the season is still early, and, as its tenants are unwarlike, 

 we can examine it in safety. Their dwelling, oval in shape, 

 is entirely composed of moss, which the bees ingeniously 

 heckle or card with their feet, afterwards working it up into a 

 compact mass, resisting changes of weather. When possible 

 these architects like to choose a site at the foot of a wall or 

 base of a bank, this position giving them a certain security. 

 Lifting the roof of the nest we find a series of cells of various 

 sizes, connected by masses of coarse brown wax, somewhat 

 in shape like pigeons' eggs, but longer and thinner. These 

 cells are not made of wax, but of a silky material like rice- 

 paper, and are really the cocoons spun by the bee-grubs. At 

 this time of year they will not be very numerous, but towards 

 the end of summer we may count between two and three score. 

 Round about these cocoons, at the sides and base of the nest. 



