t 
22 THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 
work of excavating this tunnel may be plainly seen roughly 
marking out the future entrance. Once in the soft pith, 
the ‘work of excavating proceeds rapidly. The vertical 
tunnel usually extends both above and below the entrance 
hole, and is about half an inch in diameter. In the exca- 
vation of this shaft, the bee bites off pieces of pith with 
her powerful mandibles, and then by means of the fore- 
legs, conveys these particles, together with wood dust, to 
the hairy ventral surface of the abdomen, the finer dust 
being collected on the large brushes of the hind legs. When 
fully loaded, the bee climbs up to the exit, and protrud- 
ing her abdomen through the hole, proceeds to clean off the 
wood-particles with the first and second pairs of legs, 
working backward with a raking movement; then the hind 
legs are extended, and the collected wood dust removed by 
rubbing one leg against the other. 
When the tunnel is completed the next work is that 
of provisioning the first cell. A coarse yellow pollen is 
collected on the brushes of the hind legs and is conveyed 
to the nest. JI believe this pollen is that of the Grass-tree 
itself, though I have, unfortunately, been unable to verify 
this. The pollen is packed on the floor of the cell, and 
when sufficient has been collected, the bee works it up 
_ with the addition of honey into a spherical loaf of sweet- 
smelling bee-bread, of a rich, dark yellow colour, and 
_ slightly sticky to the touch. The egg is then laid on the 
- ball of bee bread, and the next operation is that of con- 
structing a roof to the cell by means of a plug of wood 
fragments, bitten off from the walls. The plug is con- 
structed in concentric circles, one inside the other, until 
only a small aperture is left, which is finally closed with 
- wood pulp. This partition, while forming the roof of one 
cell, is also the floor of that next above. 
‘ 
The cells are not usually constructed in any regu- 
lar order; one or two cells may be built in the section of © 
the nest below the entrance, and then, perhaps, one in the 
- portion above. The cells measure about half an inch in 
‘depth. 
__ I have never observed a nest in which the space near 
the entrance hole is filled with cells; it is always left vacant: 
for about an inch or more on either side. The largest 
nests I have examined contained eight or nine cells. 
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