68 INSECT ARTIZANS AND THEIR WORK 







C. muraria. Reaumur told its story many years 

 ago, and more recently Fabre has paid much atten 

 tion to it, making experiments that help to 

 understanding of the order of its intelligence. 



Reaumur says that having decided upon the site 

 of her nursery, the bee carefully selects sand, grain 

 by grain, for her building materials. These she 

 glues together by means of a viscid secretion from 

 her mouth, until they form masses the size of small 

 shot, and transports them in her jaws to the build- 

 ing site. With a number of these, cemented by 

 the same means, she constructs her foundations. 

 Upon these she runs up the walls of a thimble- 

 shaped cell, an inch long and half that in breadth. 

 Before it is roofed in she becomes a gatherer of 

 pollen and honey with which she stocks the cell, 

 and lays an egg in with it. She first puts her head 

 into the cell, on her return from one of these 

 journeys, and discharges her gathering of honey. 

 The pollen has been collected on the hairs of her 

 lower surface, and to discharge this she gets into 

 the cell backwards and cleans the pollen off in such 

 manner that it falls to the bottom. When the 

 requisite quantity of each has been stored she gets 

 her head well into the cell and with her jaws works 

 up the honey and pollen into a homogeneous 

 paste ; then lays her egg and seals up the top of 

 the cell. 



The construction of one cell takes the labour of 

 two days. Eight or nine cells are built one against 

 the other in this way, and then the whole of them 



