The Trae Bees 



Curiously enough, these bees seem to be on perfectly good 

 terms with their hosts, visiting flowers in their company and 

 visiting their burrows as unconcernedly as though they were the 

 result of their own labors. Emerton has observed that there is 

 frequently enough food for the larva of the cell-maker and the 



Fig. 5. — Legs of different bees: A, Apis; B, Melipona; C, Bombus. 

 (From Insect Life.) 



larva of the cuckoo bee, and that they both thrive and issue as 

 adults simultaneously. This cuckoo life is found with bees of 

 certain other groups, and will be referred to later. 



The rather smooth and active little bees of the family Cera- 

 tinidae, which have been termed small carpenter bees, are ex- 

 tremely interesting creatures, and are generally metallic blue, 

 blue-black or bright green four-winged flies, not hairy, and are 

 very active in the summer time. They bore tunnels into the 

 stems of pithy plants and form their cells in these burrows. 

 They are very commonly found in brambles. The cells are lined 

 with a delicate silky membrane and are separated from one an- 

 other by mud partitions. The common Ceratina diipla is a 

 familiar example. With this bee the cells are filled with a paste 

 of honey and pollen upon which the larvae feed. The trans- 

 formation to imago occurs in the latter part of July or during 

 August 



From the cells of this bee two very remarkable parasites have 

 been reared by the Rev. J. L. Zabriskie, namely Diamorus ^abris- 

 hii, Cres., and Axima labriskti, How. 



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