PIONEERS OF COMMUNAL LIFE 



they look, as they fly away, as though they were wearing yellow 

 stockings. With their finely developed suctorial organ the Bees also 

 suck the nectar of flowers ; the saccharine fluid is mixed with saliva, 

 and regurgitated as honey. 



The race of the Bees too begins with solitary forms. We find such 

 bees everywhere in sandy soil: for example, in the Sertao, where 

 they dig deep galleries, at the end of which they build their cells. 

 These are often lined with fragments of leaves ; when all is ready the 

 cell is filled with "bee-bread," a mixture of honey and pollen, and 

 on this an egg is laid. The bee now closes the cell, and prepares 

 a new one for the next egg. 



She is not interested in the development of her larvae ; so that 

 it often happens that during her absence the "Cuckoo-bee" lays 

 her egg beside that of the rightful owner of the cell. The grub of 

 this bee develops the more rapidly of the two, and eats up the 

 bee-bread before the lawful inhabitant creeps out of the egg, only 

 to find that it is doomed to starve. 



Among the Solitary Bees are the handsome Carpenter Bees, as 

 large as Bumble-bees, whose black bodies have a blue-green metallic 

 lustre. At Olinda I saw these insects gnawing their holes in a rail- 

 post. Such a hole is gradually enlarged into a gallery, which is 

 divided into cells by lateral partitions, each cell receiving its ration 

 of bee-bread and an egg. The larvae eat their fill, pupate, and gnaw 

 their way to freedom through a series of doors. 



The Brazilian Emerald Bee glitters with metallic green, blue and 

 gold. The length of its proboscis exceeds that of its body. These bees 

 have on the thighs of their hindlegs baskets in which they collect 

 not only pollen, but resin for building purposes. They build in the 

 trunks of trees eaten by termites, in keyholes, and in the nests of 

 Mud- or Pollen-wasps, but they also fasten clay balls, as large as 

 walnuts, to the branches of trees, inside which are cells containing 

 eggs and honey. In some of these bees the beginnings of communal 

 life have been observed. 



In the Bumble-bees this communal life is already fully developed. 

 Like the Wasps, the Brazilian Bumble-bees are enabled by the 

 climate to maintain their community for long periods, while the 

 community of the European Bumble-bees has less than a year's life, 

 being renewed each spring by a fertilized female. Consequently the 

 nest of the "Mamangabas," as the Brazilians call these bees, is 

 often of considerable dimensions. It is frequently as large as a wash- 

 basin, and is built in the ground, preferably among the roots of a 



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