SOLITARY BEES AND WASPS.
MY attention has been drawn during the past few years to the remarkably interesting family of insects known as solitary bees and wasps. They are so called because they exist, not, as a rule, in colonies like the honey-bee and common wasps, but singly or in pairs.
These insects may often be seen in our gardens feasting on the flowers, boring tunnels into our gravel walks, making curious little nests in holes or angles in the brickwork of our houses, and yet comparatively few people know much about them and their habits, partly because they may often be taken for honey-bees, and without very close observation it is difficult to learn the characteristics of the different species.
I will endeavour to give a few details about some of the solitary bees and wasps which have come under my own observation; but it is a large subject, and as my variable health will not allow me to travel or even drive far from home, I can only speak of those specimens I have met with in my own grounds, and of which I have made a small collection for reference.
COLLETES.
(ONE THAT PLASTERS.)
This species forms a tunnel in the ground from eight to ten inches deep, and this space is divided off into about seven cells. The wonderful thing is the way in which the cells are lined with a strong membrane like gold-beater’s skin, yet exquisitely fine, and lustrous as a piece of beautiful satin. The bee has a forked tongue which she uses like a trowel, smoothing down each layer of the silk which she deposits on the walls of the cells, plastering three or four layers one over the other till her children’s nursery is upholstered quite to her mind. She then goes off to the flowers and labours diligently until she has made up a little ball of pollen and honey; one of these balls she puts in each cell and lays an egg in it, out of which a tiny grub will be hatched in due time. Finding its food all ready, the grub eats and grows until it is full-sized, then it turns into a chrysalis, and at length comes out a perfect bee like its mother.
The Colletes are smaller than the honey-bee, but at first sight are very like it in colour and shape. The males are smaller than the females; they do nothing towards founding the family; they flit from flower to flower and fertilise the blossoms, so that in this way they are of great use by enabling plants to produce seed; they also bask on leaves in the sun, and seem to have a happy though very idle time. This seems to be the case with the males of all species of bees. The females are the hard workers; they make the home, lay the eggs, collect the pollen and mix it with honey for the food of the young when hatched, and then they hibernate through the winter so as to be ready to begin their work again the following spring.
There are five species of this bee, and they choose different places for their nests according to their species. Some like a sunny aspect, some choose shady places, some bore into the face of sandy rocks, others into the mortar in old walls, but wherever it may be, there are generally multitudes of them to be found in the same place, each one having its separate hole, but dwelling in large colonies.