HYMENOPTERA: APIARLE. 371 



two thousand males, fifty thousand workers, and only one 

 queen. Of all insects no other has so excited the interest 

 and admiration of mankind in every age. A volume 

 might well be devoted to its intensely interesting and fas- 

 cinating history, as traced by Reaumur, Huber, and others. 

 The Hive-Bee is indigenous to the Eastern hemisphere.* 



The Genus Bombits embraces the Humble-Bees, of 

 which there are many species, over forty belonging to 

 North America, and ten of these to New England, and 

 which are at once known by their large and very hirsute 

 bodies. They build nests in the ground or under loose 

 stones, and their cells are large, oval, and partially separate. 

 There are generally one hundred of these bees in a com- 

 munity, sometimes four hundred. A single female that 

 has survived the winter, founds a colony in the spring. 

 About the middle of May the workers begin to hatch. 

 Late in the summer there is a brood of males and females. 



The Genus Xylocopha contains the Carpenter-Bees, 

 which are of large size, and which form a tube or burrow 

 a foot or more in length, curved, and open at each end, in 

 a wooden post or stump, and deposit therein their eggs, 

 arranging them in successive layers in masses of pollen. 



The Genus Megachile comprises the Leaf - Cutters, 

 which cut circular pieces from leaves, and with these 

 make a honey-tight cell, which they build in holes ex- 

 cavated in trees or decayed wood, or in the earth. 



The Genus Osmia includes the Mason-Bees, which are 

 bluish or green, and have a circular, much incurved ab- 

 domen. They make their nests with sand in crevices. 

 Andrena resembles the Hive-Bee, but is smaller, and its 

 members burrow in the ground. Cceleoxys has the abdo- 

 men triangular. Its species lay their eggs in the nests 

 of other bees. Nomada is not hirsute, and its slender 



* When not otherwise stated, the Insects described in this book belong 

 to the United States. 



