48 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 



mistaken for ordinary wasps. They provision their 

 cells with bees, Andrena, Halictus, and even the 

 Honey Bee. A Continental species is so much 

 addicted to onslaughts upon the Honey Bee {Apis 

 mellifica) that it is named Philanthus apivorus. 

 Our own species, P. triangulum, is not free from 

 this reproach, but bee-masters, who appear to be 

 capable of knowing only one insect well, regard it 

 as the Common Wasp (Vespa vulgaris), and will 

 tell you harrowing tales of the way in which the 

 latter decimates the hive population. The bee is 

 stung and its body kneaded in order to set free the 

 honey it contains. Upon this the wasp feeds, and 

 entombs the remains in its cell for the nourishing 

 of its grub. Owing to this habit of Philanthus, 

 which causes the death of the bee, it cannot store 

 its cells with sufficient food to last the grub, but 

 has, like Bembex, to take in fresh supplies at intervals. 

 According to Fabre the burrows of P. apivorus 

 are about three feet in depth — an astonishing 

 piece of mining to be carried out, unaided, by 

 a wasp that is only half an inch long. Philanthus 

 punctatus, an American species, was found by the 

 Peckhams to run into a bank to a length of twenty- 

 two inches, fourteen of which ran parallel to the 

 surface at a depth of eight inches. " We have no 

 doubt that punctatus completely provisions one 

 pocket and closes the opening from it into the 

 gallery before she starts another, making a series of 

 six or eight independent cells. The provision for 

 one larva is probably twelve or fourteen bees, the 



