The Mason-Bees | Page 7

future of the cells.
She confides her buildings only to solid foundations, such as bare
stones. I find her equally prudent in the south; but, for some reason
which I do not know, she here generally prefers some other base to the
stone of a wall. A rounded pebble, often hardly larger than one's fist,
one of those cobbles with which the waters of the glacial period
covered the terraces of the Rhone Valley, forms the most popular
support. The extreme abundance of these sites might easily influence
the Bee's choice: all our less elevated uplands, all our arid, thyme-clad
grounds are nothing but water-worn stones cemented with red earth. In
the valleys, the Chalicodoma has also the pebbles of the
mountain-streams at her disposal. Near Orange, for instance, her
favourite spots are the alluvia of the Aygues, with their carpets of
smooth pebbles no longer visited by the waters. Lastly, if a cobble be
wanting, the Mason-bee will establish her nest on any sort of stone, on
a mile-stone or a boundary-wall.
The Sicilian Chalicodoma has an even greater variety of choice. Her
most cherished site is the lower surface of the projecting tiles of a roof.
There is not a cottage in the fields, however small, but shelters her
nests under the eaves. Here, each spring, she settles in populous
colonies, whose masonry, handed down from one generation to the next
and enlarged year by year, ends by covering considerable surfaces. I

have seen some of these nests, under the tiles of a shed, spreading over
an area of five or six square yards. When the colony was hard at work,
the busy, buzzing crowd was enough to make one giddy. The under
side of a balcony also pleases the Mason-bee, as does the embrasure of
a disused window, especially if it is closed by a blind whose slats allow
her a free passage. But these are popular resorts, where hundreds and
thousands of workers labour, each for herself. If she be alone, which
happens pretty often, the Sicilian Mason-bee instals herself in the first
little nook handy, provided that it supplies a solid foundation and
warmth. As for the nature of this foundation, she does not seem to mind.
I have seen her build on the bare stone, on bricks, on the wood of a
shutter and even on the window-panes of a shed. One thing only does
not suit her: the plaster of our houses. She is as prudent as her
kinswoman and would fear the ruin of her cells, if she entrusted them to
a support which might possibly fall.
Lastly, for reasons which I am still unable to explain to my own
satisfaction, the Sicilian Mason-bee often changes the position of her
building entirely, turning her heavy house of clay, which would seem
to require the solid support of a rock, into an aerial dwelling. A
hedge-shrub of any kind whatever--hawthorn, pomegranate, Christ's
thorn--provides her with a foundation, usually as high as a man's head.
The holm-oak and the elm give her a greater altitude. She chooses in
the bushy clump a twig no thicker than a straw; and on this narrow base
she constructs her edifice with the same mortar that she would employ
under a balcony or the ledge of a roof. When finished, the nest is a ball
of earth, bisected by the twig. It is the size of an apricot when the work
of a single insect and of one's fist if several have collaborated; but this
latter case is rare.
Both Bees use the same materials: calcareous clay, mingled with a little
sand and kneaded into a paste with the mason's own saliva. Damp
places, which would facilitate the quarrying and reduce the expenditure
of saliva for mixing the mortar, are scorned by the Mason- bees, who
refuse fresh earth for building even as our own builders refuse plaster
and lime that have long lost their setting-properties. These materials,
when soaked with pure moisture, would not hold properly. What is
wanted is a dry dust, which greedily absorbs the disgorged saliva and
forms with the latter's albuminous elements a sort of readily-hardening

Roman cement, something in short resembling the cement which we
obtain with quicklime and white of egg.
The mortar-quarry which the Sicilian Mason-bee prefers to work is a
frequented highway, whose metal of chalky flints, crushed by the
passing wheels, has become a smooth surface, like a continuous
flagstone. Whether settling on a twig in a hedge or fixing her abode
under the eaves of some rural dwelling, she always goes for her
building-materials to the nearest path or road, without allowing herself
to be distracted from her business by the constant traffic of people and
cattle. You should see the active Bee at work when the road is