36 MANUAL OF THE APIARY. 



long, tte bee large, the sting curved, with the barbs very- 

 short and few. Only the queen survives the winter. In 

 spring she forms her nest under some sod or board, hollowing 

 out a basin in the earth, and after storing a mass of bee- 

 bread — probably a mixture of honey and pollen — she deposits 

 several eggs in the mass. The larvas so soon as hatched out, eat 

 out thimble-shaped spaces, which in time become even larger, 

 and not unlike in form the queen-cells of our hive-bees. 

 When the bees issue from these cells the same are strength- 

 ened by wax. Later in the season these coarse wax cells be- 

 come very numerous. Some may be made as cells and not tormed 

 as above. The wax is dark, and doubtless contains much pol- 

 len, as do the cappings and queen-cells of the honey-bees. 

 At first the bees are all workers, later queens appear, and still 

 later males. All, or nearly all, entomologists speak of two 

 sizes of queen bumble-bees, the large and the small. The 

 small appear early in the season, and the large late. A 

 student of our College, Mr. N. P. Graham, who last year had 

 a colony of bumble-bees in his room the whole season, thinks 

 this an error. He believes that the individuals of the Sombus 

 nest exactly correspond with those of the Apis. The queens, 

 like those of bees, are smaller before mating and active 

 laying. May not this be another case like that of the two 

 kinds of worker-bees which deceived even Huber, an error 

 consequent upon lack oi careful and prolonged observation ? 



In Xylocopa or the carpenter-bees, which much resemble 

 the bumble-bees, we have a fine example of a boring insect. 

 With its strong mandibles or jaws it cuts long tunnels, often 

 one or two feet long in the hardest wood. These burrows are 

 divided by chip partitions into cells, and in each cell is left 

 the bee-bread and an egg. 



The mason-bee — ^well named — constructs cells of earth and 

 gravel, which by aid of its spittle it has power to cement, so 

 that they are harder than brick. 



The tailor or leaf-cutting bees, of the genus Megachile, 

 make wonderful cells from variously shaped pieces of leaves. 

 These are always mathematical in form, usually circular and 

 oblong, and are cut — by the insect's making scissors of its 

 jaws — from various leaves, the rose being a favorite. I have 

 found these cells made almost wholly of the petals or flower 



