THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE AND THE BEEHIVE 



filled with pollen, on which an egg is laid. Odier species of 

 this group enter houses in India, and both sexes there take 

 part in making cells of clay, which may be set in any hollow 

 tube, such as the barrel of a gun or the hollow in the back 



Fig, 13. — Nests of leaf-cut- 

 ting bee. A, one cell sepa- 

 rated, with lid open, and the 

 larva (a) reposing on the 

 food; B, part of a string of. 

 the cells. (After Home.) 



of a book which is lying open, or in the interior of a piece of 

 bamboo. 



Then we have the mason bees, which construct nests of 

 sand or soil or clay moulded together with some sticky sub- 

 stance. Externally each cell is rough and untidy, but inside 

 it is smooth and polished. Generally ten to twenty cells 

 form a nest, and each cell is stored with a mixture of honey 

 and pollen. Some of these mason bees are very hairy, and 

 the two sexes differ from each other in colour. In its gen- 

 eral appearance this bee is something between a humble-bee 

 and a honey-bee, but it is solitary in its habits. Each cell 

 may be an inch deep, and here we see pollen being carried on 



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