Wasps, Bees, and Ants 
5 1 3 
The hairy, medium-sized mining-bees of the short-tongued genus Col- 
letes dig short vertical burrows in the ground which they line internally with 
a sort of slime that dries to a substance like gold-beater’s skin; they partition 
the burrow into six to ten cells in each of which is deposited an egg, together 
with a store of food, pollen, and honey mixed. Colletes has the under-lip 
bilobed like that of wasps and is evidently one of the lowest of the bees. 
Prosopis is a short-tongued genus of nearly hairless, 
small, coal-black bees which tunnel into the stems of 
brambles and other plants, or dig burrows in the 
ground, or make cells in crevices in walls; the cells are 
always lined with a silken membrane, and the stored 
food is more liquid than usual with bees. 
The dainty little blue or green carpenter-bees of the 
long-tongued genus Ceratina are common and wide¬ 
spread; their nests are tunnels in twigs and canes of 
sumac, brambles, and other plants (Fig. 718). Com¬ 
stock writes of the nest-building of the species, C. dupla , 
as follows: “She always selects a twig with a soft pith 
which she excavates with her mandibles, and so makes a 
long tunnel. Then she gathers pollen and puts it in 
the bottom of the nest, lays an egg on it, and then 
makes a partition out of pith chips, which serves as a 
roof to this cell and a floor to the one above it. This 
process she repeats until the tunnel is nearly full, then 
she rests in the space above the last cell, and waits for 
her children to grow up. The lower one hatches first; 
and, after it has attained its growth, it tears down the 
partition above it, and then waits patiently for the one 
above to do the same. Finally, after the last one in the 
top cell has matured, the mother leads forth her full- 
fledged family in a flight into the sunshine. This is 
the only case known to the writer where a solitary 
bee watches her nest till her young mature. After 
the last of the brood has emerged from its cell, the substance of which the 
partitions were made, and which has been forced to the bottom of the nest 
by the young bees when making their escape, is cleaned out by the family, 
the old bee and the young ones all working together. Then the nest is used 
again by one of the bees. We have collected hundreds of these nests, and, 
by opening different nests at different seasons have gained an idea of what 
goes on in a single nest. There are two broods each year. The mature 
bees of the fall brood winter in the nests.” 
Other familiar carpenter-bees are the great black Xylocopas (PI. XII, 
Fig. 718. —Nest-tun¬ 
nel of carpenter- 
bee. (Natural size.) 
