270 



ELEMENTARY ENTOMOLOGY 



flight into the sunshine." The larger carpenter-bee (Xylocopa 

 virginicd] closely resembles a bumble-bee, being fully as large, 

 yellow and black in color, with a metallic blue reflection on the 

 abdomen. It excavates its nests in solid 

 wood, often boring for a foot or more. 



Many of the long-tongued bees are known 

 as guest-bees, from their habit of laying 

 their eggs in the cells of other bees, which 

 rear the larvae of the intruders as they do 

 their own. The largest of these (Psythirus) 

 so closely resemble bumble-bees that it is 

 difficult to distinguish them from the males, 

 though the females are readily recognized 

 from their lacking the pollen-basket borne 

 by the hind-legs of the bumble-bees. Just 

 why they are tolerated is a mystery, for the 

 bumble-bees allow them to go in and out 

 of their nests with the greatest freedom. 

 The social bees include our 

 common bumble-bee and the 

 domesticated honey-bees. The 

 bumble-bees are of considerable 

 importance to the farmer, for 

 they are the only ones whose 

 tongues are long enough to feed 

 on red-clover blossoms, so that 

 they are entirely responsible for 

 its pollination, and where they 

 are scarce it is difficult to secure 

 a crop of clover seed. It is 

 hardly necessary to describe the nest of a bumble-bee, for what 

 country boy does not look back upon the stirring experiences in- 

 cident to the robbing of their nests, or of accidentally disturbing 

 one while mowing, and being given good reason to remember the 

 fact. The queens are larger than the males or workers, and are 

 the only forms which live over winter. In the spring the queen 

 finds some deserted mouse nest and within it places a ball of pol- 

 len and her eggs. The larvae feed on the pollen and, when full 



FiG. 431. Nest of bumble-bee (Bombus 



sp.), showing opening at the surface of 



the ground and also brood cells in the 



cavity beneath 



(Adapted from McCook by Kellogg) 



