Mason bee

“ Endowed with stout mandibles, the perfect insect splits the ceiling of its abode by itself without much difficulty. At the time of its deliverance, the Mason-bees, who work in May, have long disappeared. The nests on the pebbles are all closed, the provisioning is finished, the larvae are sleeping in their yellow cocoons. As the old nests are utilized by the Mason so long as they are not too much dilapidated, the dome which has just been vacated by the Leucopsis, now more than a year old, has its other cells occupied by the Bee's children. ”

“ Let us now show up the Dioxys. At the time when the work of construction is in progress, she is an impudent visitor of the nests, exploiting with the same effrontery the enormous cities of the Mason-bee of the Sheds and the solitary cupolas of the Mason-bee of the Pebbles. An innumerable population, coming and going, humming and buzzing, strikes her with no awe. On the tiles hanging from the walls of my porch I see her, with her red scarf round her body, stalking with sublime assurance over the ridged expanse of nests. Her black schemes leave the swarm profoundly indifferent ”

“ Thus the Mason-bee who is beginning to build and to whom we give a complete cell, a cell filled with honey, makes no change in the order of her work: she builds first and then victuals. Only she shortens her work, her instinct warning her that the height of the cell and the quantity of honey are beginning to assume extravagant proportions. ”

“ The labors of the Mason bees, and their allies, terminate after the cell is once constructed and filled with pollen. The eggs are then left to hatch, and the young care for themselves, though the adult bee shows greater skill in architecture than the Humble bee. It is thus throughout nature. Many forms, comparatively low in the scale of life, astonish us with certain characters or traits, reminding us of beings much superior, physically and intellectually. The lower forms constantly reach up and in some way ally themselves with creatures far more highly organized. ”

“ If you follow the work of the swarm assiduously, you may occasionally find a surprise awaiting you. A Mason-bee will appear and, for no reason known to you, break open a door and lay her egg in the violated cell. From what goes before, I look upon the Bee as a laggard, kept away from the workyard by an accident, or else carried to a distance by a gust of wind. ”

“ When there is more than she needs, what earthly motive impels the Dioxys to destroy a rival in the germ stage? Why cannot she allow the larva, her mess-mate, to take advantage of the remains and afterwards to shift for itself as best it can? But no: the Mason-bee's offspring must needs be stupidly sacrificed on the top of provisions which will only grow mouldy and useless! I should be reduced to the gloomy lucubrations of a Schopenhauer if I once let myself begin on parasitism. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The mason-bee makes her nest by an invariable rule; the model is in her mind, as it has been in the mind of her race from their first creation: they have learnt nothing by experience. But the mode in which they accomplish this task varies according to the situations in which they are placed. They appear to have a glimmering of reason, employed as an accessary and instrument of their instinct.
Cells of Mason-Bees, built, in the first and second figures, by Osmia bicornis between bricks, and in the third, by Megachile muraria in the fluting of an old pilaster.—About half the natural size. ”

“ Let us, then, examine the insect's intelligence from another point of view, that of the introduction of foreign bodies into the cell. The Mason-bee is a housekeeper of scrupulous cleanliness, as indeed are all the Hymenoptera. Not a spot of dirt is suffered in her honey-pot; not a grain of dust is permitted on the surface of her mixture. And yet, while the jar is open, the precious Bee-bread is exposed to accidents. The workers in the cells above may inadvertently drop a little mortar into the lower cells ”

“ I have named the provision-thieves, the grub-murderers and the house-grabbers who levy tribute on the Mason-bee. Does that end the list? Not at all. The old nests are cities of the dead. They contain Bees who, on achieving the perfect state, were unable to open the exit-door through the cement and who withered in their cells; they contain dead larvae, turned into black, brittle cylinders; untouched provisions, both mouldy and fresh, on which the egg has come to grief ”

“ The mason bee is so called by Reaumur from the manner of its building its nest. These bees collect with their jaws small parcels of earth and sand, which they glue together with a strong cement furnished from the proboscis; and of this they form a simple but commodious habitation, which is generally placed [305] along walls that are exposed to the south. Each nest resembles a lump of rude earth, of about six or seven inches diameter, thrown against the wall; the labour of constructing so large an edifice must be very great, as the bee can only carry a few grains at a time. ”

“ Let him dismiss any such illusion: more and more journeys are undertaken, now in quest of food, now in quest of mortar; but not one of the Mason-bees troubles about the disastrous breach. The harvester goes on harvesting; the busy bricklayer proceeds with her next row of bricks, as though nothing out of the way had happened. Lastly, if the injured cells are high enough and contain enough provisions, the Bee lays her eggs, puts a door to the house and passes on to another house, without doing aught to remedy the leakage of the honey. ”

“ The Bee picks out the bits of straw, one by one, to the very last, and each time goes and gets rid of them at a distance. The effort is out of all proportion to the work: I see the Bee soar above the nearest plane-tree, to a height of thirty feet, and fly away beyond it to rid herself of her burden, a mere atom. She fears lest she should litter the place by dropping her bit of straw on the ground, under the nest. A thing like that must be carried very far away.
I place upon the honey-paste a Mason-bee's egg which I myself saw laid in an adjacent cell. ”

“ It is therefore fully established that the Mason-bee of the Walls, carried to a distance of two and a half miles and released at a place which she has certainly never seen before, is able to return to the nest. But why do first one out of two and then two out of five fail to join their fellows? What one can do cannot another do? Is there a difference in the faculty that guides them over unknown ground? ”

“ The upholsterer stores honey and pollen that looks like rose-colored jam. I dare say it is very delicious. The mason bees take bits of chalk, sand, and woody material, which they make into tiny bricks to use in building their little houses. Another kind of bee hunts for an old snail shell in which to make her house. There is another variety that builds its nest in the heart of the scarlet poppy. Some bees throw out sweet perfume. Although most bees work in the sunshine, there is a class, with wings tinted like the rainbow, that works by moonlight. ”

“ And all day long, with not a sign of weariness, the same activity is maintained as long as the sun is high enough. When it is late, if the house is not yet closed, the Bee retires to her cell to spend the night there, head downwards, tip of her abdomen outside, a habit foreign to the Chalicodoma of the Sheds. Then and then alone the Mason rests; but it is a rest that is in a sense equivalent to work, for, thus placed, she blocks the entrance to the honey-store and defends her treasure against twilight or night marauders. ”

“ A dab of mortar more or less is not a serious business. I had already noticed that it takes my Mason-bees a journey of three or four minutes to collect one. The pollen-expeditions last longer, a matter of ten or fifteen minutes. To drop her pellet, grab the straw with her mandibles, now disengaged, remove it and gather a fresh supply of cement would entail a loss of five minutes at most. The Bee decides differently. She will not, she cannot relinquish her pellet; and she uses it. No matter that the larva will perish by this untimely trowelling: the moment has come to wall up the door ”

“ Exterior wall of Mason-bee's Nest.
You see there is a small hole in it; this leads to a cell inside about an inch deep, and shaped exactly like a lady's thimble; the inside of this cell is polished smooth, and appears like a wall of plaster, except that it has little yellow stains upon it. Here is the bee that makes it.
Mason-bee.—Natural size.
In making this mortar to build with, the bee [Pg 69] will sometimes add earth that is soft to its grains of sand, and when the lump is about the size of a small shot, it takes it up and flies away with it, to work it into the wall. ”

“ If the first starves the Mason's grub to death, if the second makes it perish in the egg, there are others who have a more pitiable ending in store for the worker's family. When the Bee's grub, all plump and fat and greasy, has finished its provisions and spun its cocoon wherein to sleep the slumber akin to death, the necessary period of preparation for its future life, these other enemies hasten to the nests whose fortifications are powerless against their hideously ingenious methods. ”

“ As the nests of the Mason-bee of the Walls are erected on small-sized pebbles, which can be easily carried wherever you like and moved about from one place to another, without disturbing either the work of the builder or the repose of the occupants of the cells, they lend themselves readily to practical experiment, the only method that can throw a little light on the nature of instinct. ”

“ There is another Bee, the Dioxys, who acts in about the same way as the Stelis-wasp, except that she sometimes does even worse, and eats up the grub itself, as well as its honey. Then there are the Osmia-bees and the Leaf-cutting Bees, who make themselves very much at home in the Bees’ houses, when they get a chance, keeping out the real owners; and there are also three flies, whose grubs eat the Bee-grub alive! It sometimes seems wonderful that the Mason-bee should ever live to grow up ”

“ We shall also find some, no less plentiful, in which the withered larva is accompanied by a family of little grubs wriggling uneasily around it.
Examination at once reveals the tragedy that is happening under the cover of the cocoon. The flacid and faded larva is the mason bee's. A month ago, in June, having finished its mess of honey, it wove its silken sheath for a bedchamber wherein to take the long sleep which is the prelude to the metamorphosis. Bulging with fat, it is a rich and defenseless morsel for whoever is able to reach it. ”

“ The obstacle which I select is ordinary brown paper, stout enough to keep the insect in the dark and thin enough not to offer serious resistance to the prisoner's efforts. As there is a great difference, in so far as the actual nature of the barrier is concerned, between a paper partition and a clay ceiling, let us begin by enquiring if the Mason-bee of the Walls knows how or rather is able to make her way through one of these partitions. The mandibles are pickaxes suitable for breaking through hard mortar: are they also scissors capable of cutting a thin membrane? ”

“ These incidents are sufficient to show why I hesitate to give the name of memory to the singular faculty that brings the insect back to her nest with such unerring precision and yet does not allow her to distinguish her work from some one else's, however great the difference may be.
We will now experiment with Chalicodoma muraria from another psychological point of view. Here is a Mason-bee building; she is at work on the first course of her cell. ”

“ Unable herself to enter the Mason bee's cell to lay her egg, she cannot leave it either, when the time comes to free herself and appear in broad daylight in her wedding dress. The larva, on its side, is powerless to prepare the way for the coming flight. That buttery little cylinder, owning no tools but a sucker so flimsy that it barely arrives at substance and so small that it is almost a geometrical point, is even weaker than the adult insect, which at least flies and walks. ”

“ The entomological tribe seems hardly to swerve from a common stock of aptitudes; those whom we consider the most richly endowed, on the evidence of actions normally accomplished, show themselves as limited as the rest when the experimenter disturbs the current of their instincts. It is probable that the Mason-bee would have committed the same absurdities as the Pelopæus, had I thought of subjecting her, at a propitious time, to a similar test. A plasterer by profession, she would, like the other, have plastered the base of the nest removed from the pebble at the right moment. ”

“ Perhaps each thrust of the instrument, provided that it meets with no resistance from solid matter, lays the egg, to whose lot there falls at one time good, wholesome food, at another mere refuse.
These anomalies call for more conclusive proofs than the rough deductions drawn from the nature of the horny ovipositor. We must ascertain in a direct fashion whether the cell into which the auger has been driven several times over actually contains several occupants in addition to the larva of the Mason-bee. ”