24 



THE HOME OF THE BEEP. 



The habits ancT structure of the little green Ceratina ally it 

 closely with Xylocopa. This pretty bee, named Ceratina dupla 

 by. Mr. Say, tunnels out the stems of the elder or 

 blackberry, syringa, or any pithy shrub, excavating 

 them often to a depth of six or seven inches. She 

 makes the walls just wide enough to admit her 

 body, and of a depth capable of holding three or 

 four, often five or six cells (Fig. 22). The finely 

 built cells, with their delicate silken walls, are 

 cylindrical and nearly square at each end, though 

 the free end of the last cell is rounded off. They 

 are four and a half tenths of an inch long, and a lit- 

 tle over one-third as broad. The bee places them 

 at nearly equal distances apart, the slight interval 

 between them being filled in with dirt. 



Dr. T. W. Harris states that May 15, 1832, one 

 female laid its eggs in the hollow of an aster stalk. 

 Three perfect insects were disclosed from it July 

 28th. The observations of Mr. Angus, who saw 

 some bees making their cells May 18th, also con- 

 firm this account. The history of our little uphol- 

 sterer is thus cleared up. Late in the spring she 

 builds her cells, fills them with pollen, and lays one 

 22. Nest of or more eggs upon each mass. Thus in about two 

 Ceratina. months the insect completes its transformations ; 

 within this period passing through the egg, the larva and 

 chrysalid states, and then, as a bee, living a few days more, if a 



slnt used in the staging of the greenhouse. The dimensions were as fol- 

 lows :— Opening fully 3-8 wide; depth 7-lG; whole length of tunnel G 5-16 

 inches. The tunnel branclied both ways from the hole. One end. from 

 opening, was 2 5-8, containing three cells, two with larva and pollen, the 

 third empty. The other side of the opening, or the rest of the tunnel, 

 was empty, with the exception of the old bee (only one) at work. I thiuk 

 this was the work of one bee, and, as near as I can judge, about twenty- 

 flve days' woi-k. Widtli of tunnel inside at widest 9-lG inch. 



I have just found a Xylocopa bobbuig at one of the holes, and in order to 

 ascertam the depth of the tunnel, and to see whether there were any others 

 in tliem, I sounded with a pliable rod, and foimd others in one^ide, at a 

 depth of five and one half inches; the other side was four inches deep 

 witliout bees. The morning was cool, so that the object in bobbing could 

 not have been to introduce fresh currents of air, but must have had some 

 relation to those inside. Then* legs on such occasions are, as I have 

 noticed, loaded with pollen." 



