Bee nest

“ Together they leave the nest, together they fly from flower to flower, together they re-enter it. Together, too, they seem to glow in industry—to emulate each other’s toil. But all the while that the true industrious bee is collecting pollen and nectar the double is only pretending to do so—or rather, let us say, seeming—and whilst the former bustles about, feeding the larvæ and making the cells, the latter only bustles about, like the shadow of a busy person on the wall. But when the true bee lays an egg, the double lays one too, almost at the same moment, and in the very same cell. ”

“ Destroy their nests in breeding time, and shoot them in winter. Lapoutre, a French Naturalist, assures us, "that he saw under a tree in which there was a tom-tit's nest, a surprising quantity of the scaly parts of Bees, which this bird had dropped from its nest." Sparrows and swallows have both an ill name, but I could never observe any great hurt done by either of them. Poultry will occasionally destroy Bees, for I once recollect - 66 - seeing a hen and her brood pay dearly for their freedom with a hive, the chickens were all stung to death, and the hen escaped only with her life. ”

“ From one and the same nest there come out several inhabitants, brothers and sisters, the males with a bright brick-red fleece, and the female of a splendid velvety black, with dark-violet wings. They are all the children of the Bee who built or repaired and furnished the cells. The male Bees lead a careless existence, never work, and do not return to the clay houses except for a brief moment to woo the ladies; they have nothing to do with the housekeeping or the new nests. What they want is the nectar in the flower-cups, not mortar to build with. ”

“ The nest behind my garden is in the top of a tall, slender maple, with oaks and chestnuts surrounding and overshadowing it. Finding a nest like this is inspiration for the rest of life. The only feat comparable to it is the discovery of a bee-tree. Finding wild bees, I think, would be good training for one intending to hunt humming-birds' nests in the woods. ”

“ The wood-piercing bee cuts out her nest in decayed wood; the nest being a hollow pipe like a chimney, or a group of such pipes, each divided by regular floors, into cells for the children; one egg is put in each cell, and the cell filled with a paste made of the farina of flowers mixed with honey, for the young bee to eat when it is hatched. ”

“ Such species select a spot close to an abundant supply of the material; this they bite off and form pellets of. To these nests a moderately long arched passage is formed of the same material, of sufficient size to permit the free passage of the bees to and fro. This necessarily is shorter at first and leads to a smaller receptacle when the parent bee works alone. But as her offspring of workers increases, the passage is lengthened and the nest enlarged. ”

“ Their only method of transporting materials to the building is by pushing them along the ground—the bee, for that purpose, working backwards, with its head turned from the nest. If there is only one bee engaged in this labour, as usually happens in the early spring, when a nest is founded [76] by a solitary female who has outlived the winter, she transports her little bundles of moss or grass by successive backward pushes, till she gets them home. ”

“ This is another pretty bee which chooses a hole in some tree-stem which has been made already by a beetle or boring insect, and in order to make things quite comfortable for her future family she goes to the woolly hedge-nettle or the wild lychnis, and scraping off the wool she rolls it into a ball and flies to her nest with it, then she unrolls the wool and lines the sides of the hole with it, thus making a warm soft nest in which to place her eggs and the store of pollen and honey which they will require. ”

“ The mason bee builds her nest in the hole of an old wall, of little pieces of clay. She makes four or five cells, of the size of a thimble, in each of which she lays an egg. The carpenter bee makes a nest in an old post, by boring a hole, twelve inches long, with her teeth. In these holes she lays her eggs.
We could tell some of Aunt Betsey’s curious stories about upholstery bees and leaf-cutter bees, and we could say a good deal about their spiteful cousins, the wasps and hornets. ”

“ They live in communities of thousands—their nests are usually in old walls, in old timber, under stones, and in the earth. From their nests a string may be traced sometimes for rods, going after, and returning laden with food. During a spell of wet weather, such as would make the earth and many other places too damp and cold for a nest, they look out for better quarters. ”

“ The humble bees again differ from either in their nesting habits: the female in the spring seeks out a mouse's nest or other suitable foundation of moss, etc., in or on the surface of the ground, according to the species. This she lines with wax, deposits a heap of pollen, and lays her eggs in it. She also makes waxen cells for honey, but these are not hexagonal and symmetrical as are those of the hive bee, but are more like little pots, and are known as "honey pots". ”

“ Is it not odd that bees can make so much wax from their small wax-bags?
Did you ever find in the earth the nest of a humble-bee? The humble-bee queen works. Humble-bees dig holes in the earth with their front feet.
[Pg 48]
When they have made a hall and a room, they make a nest. It is of grass, or leaves, or hay, cut fine. They lay eggs in the nest.
They make honey in large combs. The combs are more soft and dark than those which the hive bee makes. Field mice and moles eat these bees and their combs. ”

“ Thus it becomes very fat, and grows to a size much larger than that of the full-grown bee-grub, having early dropped its six long clinging legs, which, having performed their proper function in catching hold of a bee, are no longer needed. It changes to a perfect beetle in autumn, lies in the bee's nest all the winter, and emerges in the spring. ”

“ In fact the bee, being in the building stage of its operations, goes on building, although in so doing it is carrying on a useless, if not an injurious, work. A similar state ensues when the Insect ceases to build and begins to bring provisions to the nest; although a substituted cell may contain a sufficient store of food, the bee goes on adding to this, though it is wasting its labours in so doing. ”

“ In these nests, there is usually more or less honey. Sometimes there is half a pint, or more. This honey is very palatable; and it is not an uncommon [112] thing for children to brave the danger of being stung by the bees, for the sake of capturing a nest and getting possession of its treasures. For myself, I never was ambitious of getting renown by such means as besieging a bumble-bee's nest. ”

“ One might tell it to be a bee’s nest, if his attention were called to it; for the bark around the entrance, like that of the squirrel’s, is always discoloured, in consequence of the bees alighting upon it with their moist feet. But then one may travel a long while through the woods before chancing to notice this. Bee-trees are sometimes found by accident; but the regular bee-hunter does not depend upon this, else his calling would be a very uncertain one. There is no accident in the way he goes to work. ”

“ The hunter in America takes advantage of this clear sight and of this strength of wing when, he lines a bee to its nest, by alluring one to a bait of honey within a circle of wet white paint, watching the subsequent flight, letting off another, similarly secured, at right angles to that, and looking for the nest at the intersection of the two white lines. ”

“ The bee makes its nest in old mouse nests on the ground and a careful search for such nests will generally result in discovery of a Bumblebee’s home.
Honey Bee (Apis mellifera) : The well-known Honey Bee was brought to this country from Europe. It has now become a common “wild” bee as well as a domesticated species. You may find some wild-bee colonies in hollow trees, particularly on Castle Hill.
INSECT COLLECTING—AN INEXPENSIVE HOBBY
Insects are everywhere and it is easy to collect them. Practically no expense is required to produce a very beautiful collection. ”

“ On the arrival of one, the active grub immediately clings to its body, and is carried to the nest, not, however, to introduce itself parasitically into the body of the bee-grub, but to feed on the provision which the parent bee has stored up for its own young. ”

“ Then she erects her somewhat shapeless waxen cells, stores these with honey and pollen, lays and hatches the eggs, tends and nourishes the larvae that spring to life, and soon is surrounded by a troop of daughters who aid her in all her labours, within the nest and without, while some of them soon begin to lay in their turn. The construction of the cells improves; the colony grows, the comfort increases. ”

“ The action is similar to that of a stingless, solitary carpenter bee, common in La Plata: a round burly insect with a shining steel-blue body: when the tree or bush in which this bee has its nest is approached by a man it darts about in an eccentric manner, humming loudly, and at intervals remains suspended motionless for ten or fifteen seconds at a height of seven or eight yards above his head ”

“ The industry of these birds is equal to that of the bee: throughout the day they appear to be busily employed in carrying a fine species of grass, which is the principal material they employ in the construction of this extraordinary work, as well as for repairs and additions.
It appears that, as they increase annually in numbers, they join nest to nest, till at last the bough on which they have built gives way under their weight, and they are forced to seek for a new dwelling. ”

“ In a few cases, the parasitic bee-grub devours not only the food-supply, but also the larva of its host.
Solitary and Social Bees.—Many genera of bees are represented, like most other insects, by ordinary males and females, each female constructing a nest formed of several chambers (“cells”) and storing in each chamber a supply of food for the grub to be hatched from the egg that she lays therein. ”

“ The loorie brought to his cinnamon nest.
The bee from the midst of its honey quest,
And open the leaves of the lotus lay
To welcome the noon of the summer day. ”

“ After two or three pokes at the hive to make sure that none of the bees remained, [44] a great shout went up from the boys who surrounded the deserted nest.
Children, have you ever seen a wild bees’ nest—a real bumble-bees’ home?
They are nearly always built on the ground, and are made of little pieces of grass piled and woven together into a little mound. At the very top there is a small hole which is used as the doorway through which the bees enter. The wall is not very thick, but is put together tightly so the wind will not blow it away, and it is hollow. ”

“ He seeks for the nest, and is almost sure to find it—provided the ground be open enough to enable him to execute his manoeuvres. I may here remark that, wherever bees take up their abode, there is generally open tracts in their neighbourhood, or else flower-bearing trees—since in very thick woods under the deep dark shadow of the foliage, flowers are more rare, and consequently the food of the bees more difficult to be obtained. ”

“ If the bee-tree were small, we judged it contained little honey; if the tree were valuable, we doubted if the owner would allow it to be cut. As a matter of fact, we seldom cut a bee-tree; and when we did, we wrested from it a combination of rotten wood, bee-bread, crushed brood and bees that made a potpourri which would prove disastrous to the enfeebled stomachs of this generation. But, though we rarely cut a bee-tree, bee-hunting lost none of its fascination. ”

“ Bees go by me as I stand under the apple, but they pass on for the most part bound on a long journey, across to the clover fields or up to the thyme lands; only a few go down into the mowing-grass. The hive bees are the most impatient of insects; they cannot bear to entangle their wings beating against grasses or boughs. Not one will enter a hedge. They like an open and level surface, places cropped by sheep, the sward by the roadside, fields of clover, where the flower is not deep under grass.
II.
It is the patient humble-bee that goes down into the forest of the mowing-grass. ”

“ We had another very happy find to-day, for while passing under a fine tapang-tree, we noticed the remains of a bees’ nest scattered about, and every particle was eagerly appropriated. From the marks around it appeared as if a bear had climbed this lofty tree and torn down the nest to be devoured by its young below, as there were numerous tracks of the smaller animals around, but whether the comb had been sucked by the bears or not was very immaterial to our men, who rejoiced in securing the little honey still clinging to it. ”

“ He loves not the honey, but the bees; and, it must be confessed, is frequently on the lookout for these industrious little insects. He plants himself on a post of the fence, or on a small tree in the garden, not far from the hives; and from thence sallies on them as they pass and repass, making great havoc among their numbers." The ravages of this little tyrant are not confined to the bee species; he is to be seen often "in pasture fields, taking his stand on the top of rank weeds near the cattle, and making occasional sweeps after passing insects, particularly the large black gad-fly. ”