284 THE BEE NATION. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



OTHER SPECIES OF BEES. 



THE last-named bee, like all the other species of bees or 

 Apides, of which there are several hundreds, are far 

 behind the European hive or honey bee in intelligence, 

 although much that is wonderful and surprising is related of 

 many among them, and although both their organisation 

 and their habits closely resemble those of the honey bees. 

 They also, without exception, show great skill in building. 

 The Osmia, among which the already-mentioned mason bee 

 is generally reckoned, makes buildings before whjch it is 

 impossible, as Blanchard says (Ice. cit.), not to fall into 

 ecstasy. It shows incredible prudence arid reflection in the 

 choice of materials for its cells. As it does not possess the 

 shovel-like hollows in its hind-legs in which the honey bee 

 collects pollen, it manages by rubbing its hairy body over the 

 stamens, and on arriving at home brushes off the pollen, 

 quantities of which remain between the hairs, from its body 

 with its hind-legs. It has already been said that the mason 

 bee closes its larval cells with a firm roof of mortar, 

 and as this mortar becomes as hard as a stone in con- 

 tact with the air it would seem inconceivable how the 

 young bees should emerge if the wise builder did not leave a 

 little hole closed only with soft earth or bits of stone, which 

 look like the roof, in the near side of that cell the inmate 

 of which will first emerge. It also very Avell understands 

 how to accommodate its building to circumstances, and when 

 it finds an old and deserted nest it will spare itself the 

 trouble of making a new one, and adapt the old nest to 

 its purposes after previous cleansing. Jn Algiers mason 

 bees have also been observed which also shirk the labor, 

 and make their cells in empty snail-shells. Others appear not 

 to follow their inborn tendency to build, or building instinct, 

 at all, but to usurp a ready-made nest with its cells at a 



