This bee has three great enemies: two of them are a bright-coloured bee, called Epeolus, and a fly, Miltogramma, either of which will go down the hole in the absence of the bee and lay its egg in place of the rightful owner. These usurpers turn to grubs and eat up the food which has been prepared for the Colletes. The third enemy is the earwig, if it once gets in, it will eat up the egg, the food supply, and the bee itself. In this way the bee is kept in check, else we may suppose it would multiply far too abundantly.
ANTHOPHORA.
(FLOWER-RIFLER.)
This is a name that would apply to most bees, but certainly this one seems unusually energetic in obtaining honey, visiting each flower in succession, and then whisking off to the next flower-bed as if it had not a minute to lose.
The male is jet black, and hums loudly all the time it is on the wing. It has a very long tongue, beautifully fringed with hairs at the end to enable it to sweep the flower-tubes and drink in the honey. It is a most difficult bee to catch, its vision being so acute that it is off like a flash the moment it sees the net; it is therefore only after many attempts that one can secure a specimen. The female is very different in appearance, being densely covered with yellowish down, and is easily known by her second pair of legs which are very long and clothed with tufts of black hairs. Its nesting habits are the same as those of Colletes, only the grubs remain in the cells all through the winter and hatch out in the spring.
There are immense numbers of these bees on Hampstead Heath, and it is said to be the species alluded to by Gilbert White, of Selborne, as existing in colonies on Mount Carburn, near Lewes, and so bold is it that when people walk near its nests it will rise on the wing and dash against the faces of the intruders. One species of Anthophora makes its cell on dry walls, where it looks like a lump of mud, as if a handful of wet roadstuff had been thrown on the brickwork. These bees are clever little masons and use sand, earth, chalk, and woody material, mixed in different ways, to form the nurseries for the eggs they purpose to lay.
I have not as yet been able to find one of these nests, but I read that they are about an inch deep, of the form and size of a lady’s thimble, finely polished, of the colour of plaster-of-Paris and stained in various places with yellow. These insects have to work very hard scooping out clay from one bank, obtaining chalk from another, and sand from the path or elsewhere, and then these materials have to be moistened with their own saliva and made up into pellets of a size that they are able to carry on the wing, and so by slow degrees the walls of the cell are built of these tiny bricks all glued together by their own cement. Inside there are cells with eggs and bee-food placed ready for the young grub when it is hatched.
MEGACHILE.
(LARGE-LIPPED.)
One day in summer I saw a bee go into a little hole in the brickwork of our house, and knowing it was probably making a nest, I waited till it came out and then caught it with my net that I might find out its species and then let it go. I found it was the very interesting solitary bee which lines its nest with rose-leaves (Megachile Centuncularis). It is a rather handsome large insect, covered with brownish-yellow down, and has furry-looking legs.
It is called sometimes the upholsterer-bee, because it uses such delicate curtains for its nest. I used to think it was the pink rose-petals that it used, but I have since found out more about its ways, and often see where it has been at work on my rose-trees by the circular holes it makes in the green leaves. It settles on the edge of a rose-leaf, and holding it firmly between its fore-legs it saws out a round piece of it, then flies with it to its nest and puts it neatly in as a lining. It takes from nine to twelve pieces to form a cell, and they are pieced together without any cement or glue so that, as they dry, they form a neat little tunnel. In this the bee stores up the honey and pollen of thistles which form, when mixed together, a sort of rose-coloured conserve or jam, and then in this it lays its egg and closes up the end of the cell with three pieces of leaf exactly joined so as to fill up the entrance. In this way it works till the hole is full of cells, then finally closes it up and leaves the nursery to manage for itself. The leaves of the birch-tree, elm, and dog’s mercury are used by other species, but they all choose some kind of leaf to line their nests.