THE NATURALIST.

Otago Witness, Issue 2894, 1 September 1909, Page 76

THE NATURALIST.

THIi; BEE AM) ITS DOIXGS AT HOME. THE SOLITARY BEE. i Most of v? know something that j lively little insect whose industry used to i be held up as a model while we were told ! to observe — How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour. j - And perhaps we imagined "that we knew 1 a good deal. However, the honey bee with which we are best acquainted has \ managed to .puzzle the very wisest- of men ' as to how she manages her domestic economy, and sa for the rest of us. why all ' bees are alike. We say they live »n ahive and- gathei honey. How many' have -jeen some ot the many other little homes that ' ihe various solitary bees either build or ■ adapt ro their use? i Thwe is one, for instance, says the Rev. '■ Theodore Ward, which always * chooses an empiy snail-sfipll ! If you hunt about at thtv bottom of a hedge, in places where snails are plentifui, you will generally find num- " bere of thoir empty shells; and not uncommonly you wilf meet with one which is quite- filled up with the cells of a solilary bee ! • J More strange still, there is one of thr>se ho^s which always makes its nest in a keyhole ! It generally .chooses the key.hclo of a shed, or a stable, which is always left unlocked ; and in this it brings up its little ones. Now, wouldn't you think that a keyhole would nrekp- a very draughty nursery for • »ho little grubs? But the mother bee' knows quite well how .o *nake it warm - and ochj. First of all she fetches a quanffty of soft, sticky clay, whkih she smears all over the inside >f bhe keyhole. Then she flies off to the nearest wood, and hunts [ about for a campion, or some other plant ' with a downy stem. When she finds one j she settles upon it, and mows off the soft ' down with her sharp little jaws till she has ; eul. off as much as she can carry. Then she takes it to 'the keyhole, sticks it on the clay, and goes back to get some more. > which she uses in the same way. And so she goes on till the whole keyhole is lined v with a thick coating of warm- -wool. Then , she builds her oSls in the middle, so that when the little grubs hatch out from her eggs they find themselves in a nice, comfortable -nursery, where they ' are as warm and snug' as -they ran" possibly be. The earliest of" the solitary bees to get to work, however, is the -borrowing bee, ! whose operations may be watched in the • early spring, as soon a3 the trees are ready with the earliest supplies of honej and blossom. Proflssor John B. Smith, in the ' New Jersey Pines, early one March discovered the neat little piles of clay that mark the entrance to their burrows, and describes their housekeeping carefully in the New York Tribune. Our early burrower, he writes, is a 'Species of colletes— a true bee, and not so unlike a honey bee in appearance ami collecting habits, and sh<» finds both pollen and honey. so early in the year in the blossoms of certain trees and shrubs and a few modest •' little spring flowers bhat attract no great attention. i This bee is born almost as soon as the j frost gets out of the ground, and reaches the light of day from a cell anywhere from Bin to 24in under ground, in which it has lain quietly throughout the winter. Being i ushered into the light of day is quite a j* task, therefore, and one which introduces . the insect into a life of hard work, if it | is a female, into a few days of pleasant ! idleness if it is a male. \ For a day or two -both sexes enjoy the j bright sunshine and haunt the earliest bios- I soms, selecting their mates 'meanwhile, and . <ihen the female becomes alive to th<^ fact that there is a new generation to provide for. And so in' some sandy slope she . begins to dig down, a. cylindrical shaft \ half an inch in diameter and as nearly perpendicular as possible. here the ' individuals begin to show characteristic differences, for some go down 2ft or more, j while others are satisfied with pom 12in to j 18in. This depth they reach in. two days, I the boe.? having allowed themselves little rest, and each moving many times ; ts own . weight of sand. Some of them go down 50 times their own length in that period, • and to equal their accomplishment a sft man would have to dig a well 250 ft de^sp and 2ft in diameter, using no tools save his hands and feet, and carrying out all the exoava.ted matter on his head. | When the bee is satisfied with the depth of her shaft she leaves the runs a tunnel at almost right angles to her former work, and makes tibis horizontal gallery anywhere from 2in. to 6in in length, again exercising her individual preference in the matter. At the end of this gallery, whatever its depth, sho builds a little parch-lnont-linad poll nearly an inch in length and abou! one-third that in diameter. This parchment is extremely thin, and really nothing more than the hardened salivary T-cretion of the bee itself, but it is quite tough, and it is waterproof, which is all that is really necessary. This marks the completion" of ono stage of the work, apd then the scene changes, for the next step — the gathering of supplies — must be done above ground. And now out bee haunts the early blossoms, and she gathers pollen in basket-loads — leg-baskets, of course — and crop loads of nectar, and unloads them in that newly-constructed brood eell — not helter skelter, by any means, but carefully mixed and combined one with the other, so as to form a pasty mass of exactly the consistency for the nourishment of the future larvae. Just how long it requires to fill such a cell we have no means of determining at present; but the insects are indefatigable collectors, and make many journeys from flowers to bur-

rows each day. - At any rate, the -wolifc is done at last, when the cell is a littld more than half full of the sweets, and then an egg is very carefully ] a "d, attached to the side of the cell, but with the top of one end resting on the surface of the honey pa* f 9. Nov.-, it so happens that that end of the <=gg is always whore th 3 mouth of the nswiy-hatehed grub is. to be found, and hencs it has absolutely nothing to do I>ut simply suck, as often and as persistently as it likes. But that is really getting ahead of my slory, for the egg does not hatch for a month, and meanwhile the mother bee, having provided for one baby, closes *he end of the cell with a partition, of dried saliva, backs up a little eand against the partition, then commends it to Providence, and starts a new lateral from some point a, little higher up in th-a vertical shaft. She does not bother now about carrying out the sand from this new gallery. It is simply allowed to d>rop down ..into the lower end of 'the shaft and to run into the lowest lateral. The insect really wants that lower" portion filled up, and she idumps all her new dig<»ings down to protect a.nd- conceal her first born. These cells, by-t-he-by«e, v •when completed and filkd^emind one irresistibly of a .32 calibre pistol cartridge with the projecting rim -taken off. " .sodoftd-gaTfcry- a&KM&idwaye Tuhs,Cni' a direction different from the 'rest, and it is completed in the same way.- A third v and sometfmes « -fourth are then built, each one a little higher, until 'the last one- " is about a foot bslow the surface. I have found laterals nearer the surface but rarely, -and ' to be considered aa- toxoeprk>n*l occur- . renoes. »When ih* last fatettal w' loaded the digger, while f.he does not bother to fill the remaining portion of the shaft, leaves it open and in such condition that it is readily filled with drifting sand and paoked by rains until, except for a slight surface discoloration due to the day brought from below, there ts nothing: to Indicate that a burrow existed to that locality. Nevertheless, within a radius of 6in from that oentro and at depths varying from lit to 2ift, anywhere from one to two or fire loaded bee cartridges are to be 'found. A sinsrle burrow is not the limit of' a bee's activity.- Assuming that she is -nota victim to some predatory enemy, she may complete several, and may di« something like 10ft of shaft and tunnel before she dies from -exhaustion. And now what happens alter the parent bpe is d«»ad and u^one, and only, the seed she planted remains? The diggings had been noted and staked, and in syrtenmtir. search from time to time later in. tb* summer the wisdom of the mother Dee- became apparent, for the shallower the cells and the less « completely filled the gallery, th. more likely was ihe cell to be found robbed' of its honey supply, and with its embryo bee destroyed.- Ants are extremely fformd n of this honey, and once- a cell 's discovered by one of the scouts its doom is sealed. It is only a unatter of hours before th« robbers appear in hordes and the end is c* hand. , ' '. • Tne larva Is absolutely "le^l^ee— » clumsy, footless grub-, with its month. :jrhbe<id*d in honey paste— and l it offers no resistance whatsoever, no - matter how well grown it may be. ' * Tlhe lower cells are -more ,»rely disturbed and after it he grubs haver become well grown they can he removed with 'their cells, placed in a small vial. 7 ' and brought to maturity, . Although food is abundant, growth is slow, *nd it is after midsummer before the full wze is reached. Then comes the 4ransformation to the pupal stage, when all the food supply has been devoured, fend 1 from a helpless grub an active, aggressive, and skilful adult is to be- produced. In the late fall the bee is. practically mature, but remains underground, fully formed, throughout the winter and, until very early in March. Then some message reaohe. deeply underground, calls upon the sleepers, and there- is never any delay in the response. Though most. and with legs and feet that have never been tried or hardened in the warmth and light of the son, the developed bee at once begins the task of fretting to the surface, and it goes towards its end directly, not along^ the parent burrow, in what might be considered! the line of least resistance. * It is a busy life that these insects lead, and there are a cpreat many - species of , them ; some with life cycles as simple as ' that just related, others with a complicaied development chat is interesting to study and foHow out In their work of pollenising the early blooming trees and shrubs these insects fulfil an important function, and -beir .life <syole is -nicely adjuste** to bring them on the scene jutf when, needed, and to keep them safely throughout the long months, when there seems to be no part for them to play above the surface. —An old man recently applied at a rural post office for an. old-age F enai i <ra form. It would seem that his visits were few "and far between, for he looked surprised whethe found it was a woman who had charge of the offk-«-. "Good morning," he said! plea.«antly. "I thought it was a man who was the owner of thi« office.'' "So he was," replied the woman sharply. - "bat I married him."