HUNTING WILD BEES 



ing to their natural elasticity to get and keep their set 

 into the concavity of her chamber. As three or four 

 layers of these leafy drapings must be made, there are 

 busy times before mother Megachile, and back and 

 forth she flies between rose-bush and rose-den. 



Her method in clipping out the leaf sections is quite 

 like that of the cuttmg ant, whose legions I have seen 

 in Texas and Cuba stripping bare the foliage of wild 

 shrubs and such trees as the live-oak, and marching to 

 their great cavern-communes with the bits of leaf held 

 above their heads and waving as they go. No wonder 

 folk have called them "parasol ants." 



They must be dreadful pests? queries the reader. 

 The ants? Yes. For they breed by the million and 

 operate in armies. But not so the bees. They are few, 

 and, being solitary, cannot plot and organize mischief. 

 It is your "social" creatures who develop the vicious 

 traits that waste our orchards, fields, and gardens, and 

 vex our souls by their depredations. But one does not 

 need to vent his wrath on our leaf-cutter bee, for the 

 rose-bushes can well spare all that she will take, though 

 she is no laggard, whether as cutter or draper. In lay- 

 mg her upholstery it would not do, of course, to allow 

 edge simply to join to edge. The edges nmst overlap 

 to make a compact compartment. And so we find it, 

 whether by haphazard or by fair intent. The end or 

 opening into this patchwork cradle must be closed, and 

 it must need nice management and delicate touch to 

 curve and tuck and fit until the closure is made. 



And now the winged upholsterer has formed a car- 

 tridge longer and larger than herself, whose leafy shell 

 of several layers is ready to be charged. Herein must 

 go an egg, and food for the bceling that shall hatch 



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