NATURE'S CRAFTSMEN 



Our house-hunting carpenter is not discouraged. Per- 

 haps she knows that such disappointments are part of 

 the natural Hfe of dwellers in beedom, and are to be 

 taken good-naturedly and as a matter of course. 



At least she is off again as though nothing had hap- 

 pened, and this time heads for the farm-house. There 

 is a railed balustrade around the porch, above which 

 twines a honeysuckle-vine. Here at last our Xylocopa 

 stays her flight, and, creeping underneath the gray, 

 wooden hand-rail, begins the serious business of her life. 

 Having given up the plan of planting her new colony 

 in an old and abandoned settlement, she has started 

 work upon a fresh site. 



It will be an all-summer task, so we may as well sit 

 down on this rustic bench and watch her. With her 

 strong-toothed jaws she bites out a bit of the yellow 

 pine, which she drops upon the floor. Another and 

 many others follow in rapid succession, the bee revolv- 

 ing, as she works, upon her six feet, until she has gnawed 

 a shallow circular concavity in the wood, while the pile 

 of fragrant pellets beneath grows apace. 



There we may leave her. It will be tedious to watch 

 her further, for a day or more will pass ere she can open 



DOUBLE BURROW OF CARPENTER BEE 



up the vertical tubular vestibule, about an inch long, 

 that shall serve as the approach to her nest. This done, 

 she will turn at a right angle thereto and strike the line 



176 



