MINING BEES. 8i 



Mining Bees, which belong to the genus Andrena, are 

 admirable burrowers, and, in spite of their small size, drive 

 their little tunnels into the earth with astonishing ease. I once 

 came on a whole colony of the Andrena, in a peculiarly hard 

 and stony path near Dieppe. The ground was full of little 

 holes, from which the bees were continually issuing, and into 

 which others were as continually passing; their bodies yellow 

 with the pollen of the flowers which they had been rifling, and 

 which was intended to serve as a provision for the future brood. 



An ordinary pocket-knife could make no impression on the 

 ground, mixed as it was with stones, trodden by daily traffic, 

 and baked by the heat of summer, into a mass nearly as hard 

 as brick, harder perhaps than the bricks that are employed foi 

 modern houses. I was obliged, therefore, to return to my 

 room and fetch a great, rude, thick-bladed clasp-knife that was 

 reserved for rough work, and with much labour succeeded in 

 tracing several of the burrows. They were sunk, on an average, 

 about eight inches into the ground, and near the end they took 

 a sudden turn, and were ended by a rounded chamber, in which 

 was almost invariably a ball of pollen about as large as a pea. 

 No larva was found in any of the burrows. The whole of the 

 labour falls upon the female, the fore-legs of the male being 

 unable to dig, and the hind-legs unable to carry the pollen. 



At the right-hand side of the illustration on page 80 may 

 be seen a figure of a remarkable burrowing bee, called Scolia 

 flavifrons, a native of Europe, but not as yet proved to be 

 British. In common with other fossorial bees, this insect is 

 carnivorous in its larval state, and is supplied by its mother 

 with the creatures on which it feeds. 



This particular insect stocks its nest with the grub or larva of 

 a beetle, belonging to the genus Oryctes. At the bottom of the 

 cell may be seen certain grubs, the smaller of which is the larva 

 of the Scolia, and the larger that of the beetle. As may be 

 seen from the illustration, the grub of the beetle is very much 

 larger than that of the creature which feeds upon it. The 

 species which is here represented is a large and remarkably 



