288 THE BEE NATION. 



. village, and all the neighbors of the witchcraft at work. 

 The lord shewed these first to his doctor, who was able to 

 give no opinion upon them, and then to M. Nollet, from 

 whom M. Reaumur had the story. They were the cylin- 

 drical nests of the rose bee made out of rose leaves, which 

 the gardener thought could only have been made by a man 

 or a wizard. For, as no ordinary man could make them, and 

 it was difficult to see with what object he should make them 

 and bury them in the ground, they could only be the work 

 of a wizard. M. Nollet assured the good man that they 

 were the work of insects, and, as a proof, pulled a large 

 maggot out of the leaves. When the gardener saw this, his 

 erstwhile gloomy face brightened, and he looked like a man 

 who had safely escaped a great danger." 



The heavy carpenter bee (Xylocopa), spread in countless 

 species all over the globe, understands very thoroughly how 

 to hollow out her nests in old wood or beams. One of the 

 commonest sort is our violet carpenter bee (Xylocopa violacea\ 

 whose toilsome buildings may easily be found by anyone. 

 Solely by means of its strong sharp mandibles it hollows out 

 with tireless patience admirably smooth cylinders in the 

 wood, which it then divides into single cell-like chambers 

 with sawdust fastened together with a kind of glue. From 

 the lowest cell, in which is the larva which will be the first 

 to emerge, the mother makes a passage to the outside, so 

 that the insects lying above have to bore through the thin 

 partition-walls of their respective cells in order to escape. 



The carpenter bee requires no special lining for its cells, 

 owing to the softness and dryness of the wood ; but the wool 

 bee (Anihidium) carefully lines or tapestries its cylinders, 

 dug in loamy or sandy earth or in clay walls, with vegetable 

 wool scraped off leaves and flowers. The cleverness with 

 which it scrapes this wool off the plants is really astonishing. 



The good-natured and rather limited humble bee, with 

 its simple nest, displays unusual intelligence in biting the 

 nectaries of flowers, as mentioned above, in order to be 

 better able to reach their sweet contents. The way in which 

 the moss humble bees surround their nest with a layer of 

 wax, and then with a thick covering of moss, and in which 

 they pass the moss to their abode, standing in rows and 

 throwing a little bit of moss from one to another, betrays 

 similar intelligence. The long passage to the nest, often 



