The Mason-Bees | Page 8

dazzling
white under the rays of a hot sun. Between the adjoining farm, which is
the building-yard, and the road, in which the mortar is prepared, we
hear the deep hum of the Bees perpetually crossing one another as they
go to and fro. The air seems traversed by incessant trails of smoke, so
straight and rapid is the worker's flight. Those on the way to the nest
carry tiny pellets of mortar, the size of small shot; those who return at
once settle on the driest and hardest spots. Their whole body aquiver,
they scrape with the tips of their mandibles and rake with their front
tarsi to extract atoms of earth and grains of sand, which, rolled between
their teeth, become impregnated with saliva and form a solid mass. The
work is pursued so vigorously that the worker lets herself be crushed
under the feet of the passers-by rather than abandon her task.
On the other hand, the Mason-bee of the Walls, who seeks solitude, far
from human habitations, rarely shows herself on the beaten paths,
perhaps because these are too far from the places where she builds. So
long as she can find dry earth, rich in small gravel, near the pebble
chosen as the site of her nest, that is all she asks.
The Bee may either build an entirely new nest on a site as yet
unoccupied, or she may use the cells of an old nest, after repairing them.
Let us consider the former case first. After selecting her pebble, the
Mason-bee of the Walls arrives with a little ball of mortar in her
mandibles and lays it in a circular pad on the surface of the stone. The
fore-legs and above all the mandibles, which are the mason's chief tools,
work the material, which is kept plastic by the salivary fluid as this is
gradually disgorged. In order to consolidate the clay, angular bits of
gravel, the size of a lentil, are inserted separately, but only on the
outside, in the as yet soft mass. This is the foundation of the structure.

Fresh layers follow, until the cell has attained the desired height of two
or three centimetres. (Three- quarters of an inch to one
inch.--Translator's Note.)
Man's masonry is formed of stones laid one above the other and
cemented together with lime. The Chalicodoma's work can bear
comparison with ours. To economise labour and mortar, the Bee
employs coarse materials, big pieces of gravel, which to her represent
hewn stones. She chooses them carefully one by one, picks out the
hardest bits, generally with corners which, fitting one into the other,
give mutual support and contribute to the solidity of the whole. Layers
of mortar, sparingly applied, hold them together. The outside of the cell
thus assumes the appearance of a piece of rustic architecture, in which
the stones project with their natural irregularities; but the inside, which
requires a more even surface in order not to hurt the larva's tender skin,
is covered with a coat of pure mortar. This inner whitewash, however,
is put on without any attempt at art, indeed one might say that it is
ladled on in great splashes; and the grub takes care, after finishing its
mess of honey, to make itself a cocoon and hang the rude walls of its
abode with silk. On the other hand, the Anthophorae and the Halicti,
two species of Wild Bees whose grubs weave no cocoon, delicately
glaze the inside of their earthen cells and give them the gloss of
polished ivory.
The structure, whose axis is nearly always vertical and whose orifice
faces upwards so as not to let the honey escape, varies a little in shape
according to the supporting base. When set on a horizontal surface, it
rises like a little oval tower; when fixed against an upright or slanting
surface, it resembles the half of a thimble divided from top to bottom.
In this case, the support itself, the pebble, completes the outer wall.
When the cell is finished, the Bee at once sets to work to victual it. The
flowers round about, especially those of the yellow broom (Genista
scoparia), which in May deck the pebbly borders of the mountain
streams with gold, supply her with sugary liquid and pollen. She comes
with her crop swollen with honey and her belly yellowed underneath
with pollen dust. She dives head first into the cell; and for a few
moments you see some spasmodic jerks which show that she is
disgorging the honey-syrup. After emptying her crop, she comes out of
the cell, only to go in again at once, but this time backwards. The Bee

now brushes the lower side of her abdomen with her two hind-legs and
rids herself of her load of pollen. Once more