What becomes of the poor grandmothers who have no homes? They grow rarer and more languid from day to day; then they disappear for good. The little Gray Lizard had his eye on them, they are easily snapped up.
As for the one on guard, she seems never to rest. In the cool hours of the early morning, she is at her post. She is there also towards noon, when the harvesting is in full swing and there are many Bees going in and out. In the afternoon, when the heat is great and the working Bees do not go to the fields, but stay indoors instead, preparing the new cells, the grandmother is still upstairs, stopping the door with her bald head. She takes no nap during the stifling hours: the safety of the household requires her to forego it. At nightfall, or even later, she is just as busy as in the day. The others are resting, but not she, for fear, apparently, of night dangers known to herself alone.
Guarded in this manner, the burrow is safe from such a misfortune as overtook it in May. Let the Gnat come now, if she dare, to steal the Bee’s loaves! She will be put to flight at once. She will not come, because, until spring returns, she is underground in the pupa state, that is, wrapped up in her cocoon. But in her absence there is no lack, among the Fly rabble, of other parasites. And yet, for all my daily visits, I never catch one of these in the neighborhood of the summer burrows. How well the rascals know their trade! How well aware are they of the guard who keeps watch at the Bees’ door!
CHAPTER VI
THE LEAF-CUTTING BEE
If you know how to use your eyes in your garden you may observe, some day or other, a number of curious holes in the leaves of the lilac- and rose-trees, some of them round, some of them oval, as if idle but skillful hands had been at work with the pinking-iron. In some places there is scarcely anything but the veins of the leaves left. The author of the mischief is a gray-clad Bee. For scissors, she has her jaws; for compasses, she has her eye and the pivot of her body. The pieces cut out are made into thimble-shaped bags, meant to contain the honey and the egg: the larger, oval pieces make the floor and sides; the smaller, round pieces are kept for the lid. The Leaf-cutter’s nest consists of a row of a dozen, more or less, of these thimbles, placed one on top of the other.
One species of the Leaf-cutting Bee whom we will notice is called the White-girdled Leaf-cutter. She usually takes for her dwelling the tunnel of some Earthworm opening off a claybank. The tunnel is too deep for her purpose. At the bottom of it the climate is too damp, and besides, when the Bee-grub is hatched, it would be dangerous for it to have to climb so far through all sorts of rubbish to reach the surface. The Leaf-cutter, therefore, uses only the front part of the Worm’s gallery, seven or eight inches at the most. What is to be done with the rest of the tunnel? It would never do to leave it open, because some underground burglar, a worm or other insect, might come that way and attack the cells at the rear.
The little Bee foresees this danger. She sets to work to block the passage with a strong barricade of fragments of leaves, some dozens of pieces rolled into screws and fitting into each other. You can see that the insect has cut out these pieces carelessly and hurriedly, and on a different pattern from that of the pieces which are to make the nest.