SEPTEMBER SUNSHINE 261 



comes and helps, and it is a wonder to unco-operative 

 man how the neighbour gets her reward. The wasp 

 evidently belongs to and is entirely enjoyed by 

 the owner of the web, and the act of the helper is 

 dictated merely by a neighbourliness that pays be- 

 cause any other of the community is ready to do 

 the same. 



The' humble-bees, as well as the hive-bees of the 

 garden, are slow and heavy now, and "even this bright 

 day cannot enliven them. They fly with a " biz-z-z " 

 as though their joints creak with rheumatism, but it 

 may be only because their bodies are overgrown, and 

 the work of raising them in the air is almost beyond 

 the capacity of their wing area. The Maeterlinck of 

 the humble-bee has yet to arise, but one sees in these 

 large bees of autumn the possibility of a wonder 

 that the hive cannot show. It seems as though the 

 princesses now being reared, that they may go into 

 winter quarters when the common bees die, conde- 

 scend to help the community in the last days of 

 autumn as honey-gatherers. The bustling little 

 bees of midsummer have passed away, and the 

 garden is full of drones, those unwieldy " biz-z-z-ing " 

 monsters. 



There has been in our garden for the last twenty 

 years at least a race of truly all-black bees. In March 

 the monstrous, glossy queen comes forth, and when 

 her nest is established, smaller (but not much smaller) 

 black and glossy daughters work among the blossom. 

 This year their nest is in a mole-run on the bank of 

 the croquet lawn. Seeing the blacks go in and out, 

 with nearly one in ten faintly sporting back towards 

 the original stone bumble strain, we thumped the 



