The Mason-bees 



with the rifled pollen, sticky with the contents 

 of the mangled eggs, the Osmia, while at her 

 brigand's work, is altered beyond recognition. 

 Once the place is cleared, everything resumes 

 its normal course. Provisions are laboriously 

 brought to take the place of those which have 

 been thrown away; eggs are laid, one on each 

 heap of food; the partitions are built up 

 again; and the massive plug sealing the whole 

 structure is made as good as new. 



Crimes of this kind recur so often that I 

 am obliged to interfere and place in safety 

 the nests which I wish to keep intact. And 

 nothing as yet explains this brigandage, burst- 

 ing forth at the end of the work like a moral 

 epidemic, like a frenzied delirium. I should 

 say nothing if the site were lacking; but the 

 tubes are there, close by, empty and quite fit 

 to receive the eggs. The Osmia refuses them, 

 she prefers to plunder. Is it from weariness, 

 from a distaste for work after a period of 

 fierce activity? Not at all; for, when a row 

 of cells has been stripped of its contents, after 

 the ravage and waste, she has to come back 

 to ordinary work, with all its burdens. The 

 labour is not reduced; it is increased. It 

 would pay the Bee infinitely better, if she 

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