-05 
“NATURE DISCERE MORES.” 
HE coming of the Andrena in April is as certain as the 
coming of the cuckoo. One soft, sunny morning a 
little Andrena is crawling on the garden path, and on 
the next, if the weather continues warm, a whole 
colony of these brown bees is seen busily throwing up diminutive 
wigwams of soil in all directions, over the grass banks and at 
the edges of the gravel paths, where their little mounds increase 
hourly, and make the ground look like some native village in 
miniature. The appearance of this species seems largely to 
depend on fine weather, for if cold and damp winds set in they 
wholly disappear, and even when all circumstances are favour- 
able to them they only stay with us a few days; then they are 
gone and we lose sight of them until spring comes round again. 
They usually choose a south aspect for their burrows. 
Bees, if not disturbed nor frightened, will allow themselves 
to be gently stroked whilst on flowers, and are either too 
absorbed in their own affairs, or indifferent to the sensation, to 
notice it. Perhaps they enjoy it, in the same way as a frog or 
toad appreciates being tickled with a leaf. 
On a summer’s evening, while the Humble-bees help them- 
selves greedily to the honey from the poppy bed, the scarlet 
petals close slowly and quite perceptibly to the eye. The flowers 
look as if cut out of satin, so glossy, so intense in colour are 
they. The bees are in a great hurry for bed time is drawing 
near ; the sleepy poppies tell them that. 
Bombus lucorum and Bombus subterraneus, with two varieties, 
haunt the wood. These are noble but fierce-looking insects, 
and fly with impetuosity, and menacing hum which warns oft' 
too close intimacy. 1 feel no inclination to stroke these hand- 
some bees, clad in velvety brown, striped with orange and gold, 
or to consider them as playthings, like the friendly little 
Andrena. 
The African marigolds attract a species of long black bee 
that visits these flowers in numbers, and on which, overcome 
by the heat, and with the exertions of a long summer’s day, 
they fall asleep, stretched happily out, and slumber for the night. 
The clear sky above them, the soft air hushing them, the flowers 
to rest on, what more can the tired bees require ? A sleeping 
bee has such a helpless look it calls for our sympathy ; we pass 
on and leave it undisturbed. M. C. B. 
