this bee with its flavor of the forest. She is the 

 queen-mother indeed, no mere figurehead, but 

 strong, capable, self-reliant. Think of her retiring 

 under the moss and leaves at the approach of 

 winter, the last of her race; or, rather, do they 

 all resign themselves to a sleep from which she 

 alone is to awaken. She remains encircled by 

 Cold as Brunhilde was engirdled with Fire 

 till the sun shall cross the magic line and awaken 

 the sleeping Amazon. 



Today I split open a dead twig of sumac in 

 which the little upholsterer-bee had laid her eggs. 

 From the summit a well or shaft was sunk some 

 ten inches through the central pith. This I cau- 

 tiously descended by means of a jack-knife and 

 found it partitioned into a dozen cells, in each of 

 which lay a pupa, the pallid sleepers like mummies 

 in their royal tombs awaiting a resurrection. 



The cells were lined upholstered in silk 

 and partitioned from each other by walls of chips 

 cemented together. In some cases the pupa was 

 being devoured by the minute larvae of a chalcid 

 fly, and in one cell only the dried skin remained. 

 For that pupa there was to be no resurrection into 

 the life of the bee, but as the cell was opened, out 

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