BURROWING AND CARPENTER BEES 



whom most country lads have pursued with wisps of 

 hay over many a meadow in harvest-time. But her 

 habits are quite different, as we shall see. 



Let us follow this mother-bee, who is plainly upon a 

 house-hunting excursion. There she goes towards the 

 old barn. She flutters about the cornice, now in view, 

 now out of sight. Will she settle there? It is a fine 

 site. A nest was located there last summer. Perhaps 

 she was reared therein. If so, it would be nice to get 

 back to the old home quarters! No, she is off! The 

 place is pre-empted, A more enterprising house-hunter 

 has been before her, in the shape of a mud-dauber wasp, 

 perhaps. It is hardly worth while to quarrel over the 

 premises with such a vixenish squatter, especially when 

 good building sites are going a-begging everywhere 

 around. 



Away, then, flies my lady Xylocopa to the orchard, 

 which is surrounded by an old - fashioned rail - fence. 

 Here is a thick rider astride two pairs of tall, crossed 

 stakes, to which our explorer pays particular attention. 

 She has found a vacant house, and is taking possession. 

 She has disappeared within the vestibule that opens on 

 the under surface of the rail. What a commotion she 

 makes inside! As you approach your ear to listen, out 

 she comes in a fluster, almost flying into your face. 



Following close in her wake is another bee whose 

 angry buzzing and excited motions give to ear and eye 

 that warning of apian wrath which the wise heed well 

 and the ignorant pass by and are punished. Here, too, 

 is an ancient bee -ranch which an earlier comer has 

 occupied and is busily enlarging, as one may see by the 

 woody pellets that dust the lower rails and lie in a little 

 heap on the grass below. 



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