116 FABKE'S BOOK OF INSECTS 



Thanks to this unexpected lack of spirit in the Mason- 

 bee, I was able for hours to investigate her cells at my leisure, 

 seated on a stone in the midst of the murmuring and dis- 

 tracted swarm, without receiving a single sting, though I 

 took no precautions whatever. Country folk, happening to 

 pass and seeing me seated thus calmly amid the Bees, stopped 

 aghast to ask me if I had bewitched them. 



In this way I examined the cells. Some were still open, 

 and contained only a more or less complete store of honey. 

 Others were closely sealed with an earthen lid. The contents 

 of these varied greatly. Sometimes I found the larva of a 

 Bee ; sometimes another, fatter kind of larva ; at other 

 times honey with an egg floating on the surface. The egg 

 was of a beautiful white, and was shaped like a cylinder with 

 a slight curve, a fifth or sixth of an inch in length the egg 

 of the Anthophora. 



In a few cells I found this egg floating all alone on the 

 surface of the honey : in others, very many others, I saw, 

 lying on the Bee's egg as though on a sort of raft, a young 

 Sitaris-grub. Its shape and size were those of the creature 

 when it is hatched. Here, then, was the enemy within the 

 gates. 



When and how did it get in ? In none of the cells was I 

 able to detect any chink by which it could have entered : 

 they were all sealed quite tightly. The parasite must have 

 established itself in the honey-warehouse before the ware- 

 house was closed. On the other hand, the open cells, full 

 of honey but as yet without an egg, never contain a Sitaris. 

 The grub must therefore gain admittance either while the 

 Bee is laying the egg, or else afterwards, while she is busy 

 plastering up the door. My experiments have convinced 

 me that the Sitaris enters the cell in the very second when 

 the egg is laid on the surface of the honey. 



If I take a cell full of honey, with an egg floating in it, 

 and place it in a glass tube with some Sitaris-grubs, they 

 very rarely venture inside it. They cannot reach the raft 



