CHAPTER XI 

 BURROWING AND CARPENTER BEES 



AFIELD-DAY in search of wild bees gives one good 

 proof that they live in great numbers in our rural 

 parts. Here are thirteen separate species representing 

 eight genera taken in a few hours' ramble in the fields 

 of Devonside. It is not difficult to capture them with 

 an insect-net; but to find their nests is often a matter 

 of good - fortune, and to discover their habits is an 

 enormous task. Yet it has been done; and well does 

 it reward the patient entomologist, who, in turn, richly 

 endows his readers with rare and interesting facts. 



For popular guidance, our wild bees may be thus 

 roughly grouped around their social characteristics. 

 First are the social species, like the bumblebee and the 

 bee-tree honey-maker, that live in communes; second, 

 the neighborly species, like the burrowing Colletes and 

 Hahctus, that keep each to a separate domicile, but 

 group their nests in neighborhoods; and, third, the 

 solitary species, like the leaf-cutting Megachile and the 

 mason Osmia and most of the wood-working or carpen- 

 ter bees, who live a strictly hermit life. 



These, again, we might broadly divide around their 

 nest-making habits, first, into those that place their 

 brooding-cells in burrows dug in the ground or bored in 

 wood; second, those that fashion their brooding-cells 



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