190 
BRITISH BEES. 
stops up tlie orifice with grains of sand or earth. The 
food stored up is subject to fermentation, but this does 
not appear to be prejudicial to the larva, which first con¬ 
sumes the liquid portion of the store and then drills 
into the centre of the more solid part, and continues 
enlarging this little cylinder until increasing in growth 
by its consumption, it itself fills the cavity, and thus 
supplies the lateral stay or prop which, by means of the 
stored provender, was previously prevented from falling 
in. It has not been ascertained what number of eggs 
each insect lavs, or whether it bores more than one 
tube, but it is presumable that it may do so, and pos¬ 
sibly thus, from the numbers annually produced, for 
there are two broods in the year, colonies are thrown off 
which gradually form another metropolis somewhere in 
the vicinity, although the majority continue to occupy 
the old habitat from year to year. But the number of 
these insects is kept within due limits by the individual 
abundance of the parasites that infest them, and by the 
unsparing and unflinching attacks of earwigs, which con¬ 
sume all before them,—perfect insect, larva, and pro- 
vender. The two most conspicuous parasites they have, 
are the beautiful little bee, Epeolus variegatus, the young 
of which is sustained, as in all bee parasitism, by con¬ 
suming the food stored for the sustenance of the young 
of the Colletes; and the other is the little dipterous 
Miltogramma punctata , whose larva, evolved from the 
egg deposited in the cell, feeds upon the larva of the 
Colletes, or possibly upon that of the Epeolus, which 
otherwise would seem to have no check to its fertility, 
excepting that it may be subdued by the Forficulce. 
These insects are to be found during the spring and 
summer months, and throughout the southern counties, 
