BEES AND WASPS SPECIAL HABITS. 
179 
cording to circumstances, possesses itself of old nests, 
cleanses and improves them, and thereby shows that it can 
fully appreciate the immediate position ? Can one believe 
that no kind of reflection is here necessary ? ’ 
The Tapestry -Bee. — The so-called tapestry-bee digs 
holes for her larvae three or four inches deep in the earth, 
and lines the walls and floor of the chamber with petals of 
the poppy laid perfectly smooth. Several layers of petals 
are used, and when the eggs are introduced the chamber 
is closed by drawing all the leaves together at the top. 
Loose earth is then piled over the whole structure in order 
to conceal it. The so-called rose-bee ( Megachile centun- 
cularis ) displays very similar habits . 1 
The Carpenter-Bee. — This w^as first observed and de- 
scribed by Reaumur . 2 It makes a long cylindrical tube in 
the wood of beams, palings, &c. This it divides into a 
number of successive chamber^ by partitions made of 
agglutinated saw-dust built across the tube at right 
angles to its axis. In each chamber there is deposited a 
single egg, together with a store of pollen for the nourish- 
ment of the future larva. The larvae hatch out in suc- 
cession and in the order of their age — i.e. the dates at 
which they were deposited. To provide for this, the bee 
bores a hole from the lower cell to the exterior, so that 
each larva, when ready to escape from its chamber, finds 
an open way from the tube. The larvae have to cut their 
own way out through the walls of their respective chambers, 
and it is remarkable that they always cut through the wall 
rhat faces the tubular passage left by the parent ; they 
never bore their way out in the opposite direction, which, 
were they to do so, w T ould entail the destruction of all the 
other and immature larvae. 
The Caroting-Bee. — This insect surrounds its nest 
with a layer of wax, and then with a thick covering of 
moss. For this purpose a number of bees co-operate, 
and in order to save time each bee does not find and carry 
its owm moss, but, with a division of labour similar to that 
1 Fqi’ a complete account of these habits see Bingley, Animal 
biography, vol. iii. pp. 272-5. 
2 Mem. sur las Insectes, tom. vi., p, 39. 
