MINING BEES . 
8r 
Mining Bees, which belong to the genus Andrena, are 
admirable burrowers, and, in spite of their small size, drive 
their little tunnels into the earth with astonishing ease. I once 
came on a whole colony of the Andrena, in a peculiarly hard 
and stony path near Dieppe. The ground was full of little 
holes, from which the bees were continually issuing, and into 
which others were as continually passing ; their bodies yellow 
with the pollen of the flowers which they had been rifling, and 
which was intended to serve as a provision for the future brood. 
An ordinary pocket-knife could make no impression on the 
ground, mixed as it was with stones* trodden by daily traffic, 
and baked by the heat of summer, into a mass nearly as hard 
as brick, harder perhaps than the bricks that are employed for 
modern houses. I was obliged, therefore, to return to my 
room and fetch a great, rude, thick-bladed clasp-knife that was 
reserved for rough work, and with much labour succeeded in 
tracing several of the burrows. They were sunk, on an average, 
about eight inches into the ground, and near the end they took 
a sudden turn, and were ended by a rounded chamber, in which 
was almost invariably a ball of pollen about as large as a pea. 
No larva was found in any of the burrows. The whole of the 
labour falls upon the female, the fore-legs of the male being 
unable to dig, and the hind-legs unable to carry the pollen. 
At the right-hand side of the illustration on page 80 may 
be seen a figure of a remarkable burrowing bee, called Scolia 
fiavifrons , a native of Europe, but not as yet proved to be 
British. In common with other fossorial bees, this insect is 
carnivorous in its larval state, and is supplied by its mother 
with the creatures on which it feeds. 
This particular insect stocks its nest with the grub or larva of 
a beetle, belonging to the genus Oryctes. At the bottom of the 
cell may be seen certain grubs, the smaller of which is the larva 
of the Scolia, and the larger that of the beetle. As may be 
seen from the illustration, the grub of the beetle is very much 
larger than that of the creature which feeds upon it. The 
species which is here represented is a large and remarkably 
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