24 



PSYCHE. 



[February 1S94. 



is attained. At the bottom of this long 

 tunnel or gallery, the female now de- 

 posits a ball of pollen-paste in which she 

 lavs a single egg. This is then care- 

 fully covered over with a thin partition 

 formed of sawdust and a glutinous sub- 

 stance or secretion and this constitutes 

 the first cell. Upon this another ball 

 of pollen-paste and an egg is laid and 

 again enclosed by a partition and so 

 on until a series of cells, one above 

 another, is formed and the tunnel is 

 filled. The imagos hatch out in July 

 and August and hibernate in the middle 

 States diu'ing the winter months. 



Mr. L. O. Howard, in "Notes on 

 the hibernation of carpenter bees" (Proc. 

 ant. soc. Wash., vol. 2, 1S92, p. 331)' 

 records having I'eceived in February a 

 pine branch burrowed by this species 

 containing living bees. 



Mr. H. G. Hubbard in same publica- 

 tion also records some interesting ob- 

 servations made on carpenter bees in 

 Florida, which agreed with the writer's 

 own observations. 



He had found in Februarv the etrars and 

 the voung, in various stages oT development, 

 in burrows, and in March the adult bees 

 ready to issue from the burrows. By April 

 most of these had escaped and another gen- 

 eration developed during the summer. He 

 described the egg as the largest, finest and 

 most beautiful of any insect egg he had ever 

 seen ; a quarter of an inch in length and 

 perfectly transparent, revealing the embry- 

 onic larva with great clearness. 



He also stated "that on his ]ilace at 

 Crescent City they will construct their 

 burrows in a kind of 'hard-pan' or soft 

 sandstone " This species is probalily 



Xylocopa (exaiia Cr., a species also 

 common at Jacksonville, Florida. 



The nest and parasites of Xylocofa 

 orpifex Smith, a California species, 

 has been described recently in Ent. 

 news., vol. 4, p. 151, by Dr. Anstru- 

 ther Davidson. The nests were dis- 

 covered on Wilson's Peak, a mountain 

 of 5000 feet altitude, in June and 

 August, 1S93. Mr. Davidson says: — 



I picked up one piece of wood four inches 

 in diameter and about three feet long, and as 

 there was but one external opening it is 

 presumable all the cells contained therein 

 were those of one bee. From a diagonal 

 entrance the tunnels were driven longitudi- 

 nally a distance of three or four inches on 

 each side. Parallel to this was another of a 

 similar length, and a third very much 

 shorter, the cells in all numbering twenty. 

 The tunnel is not all of one uniform width 

 but is dilated in the centre of each cell so 

 that the tunnel measures three-eighths of an 

 inch in diameter at the extremities, and half 

 an inch at the centre of each cell. 



The partitions are constructed in a manner 

 apparently identical w-ith those of X. virgin- 

 ica, but the ribbon-like coil has five complete 

 whorls and is one-eighth of an inch wide. 

 After the partition is completed its angles 

 are filled up with saw-dust and smoothed 

 with a waxy secretion so as to make the 

 bottom of the next cell oval or rounded. 

 These cells have a uniform depth five-eighths 

 of an inch. Here I would like to ask if all 

 the Xylocopae make their tunnels wider in 

 the centre of each cell than elsewhere.' 



On opening many of the tunnels filled 

 early in the season one or two of the external 

 cells may be found empty, the bees having 

 already made their escape. In the lower cells 

 the bees, though perfect and active, remain 

 until the following spring, when they break 

 through the partitions and escape. In those 

 built late in the summer all seemingly remain 

 until the next spring. How it happens that 



