The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1893-09-03
BEES THAT RoRE HoLEs.
Not Bumblebees, Either, But Another
Interesting Family.
From the New York Recorder.


From the New York Recorder.
How doth the busy little bee
Improve each shining houri
He gathers sweets through all the day
From every opening flower.
But there are other kinds of bees than
those that have comfortable homes pro-
vided for them by kind follzs--who steal
their honey. There are several families
of them that bave to go out and scratch
around for themselves if they want
homes. The bee has a hard time of IL
altogether.
1t has made reputation for itself and
has to live up to it. So it must work and
work, building houses and providing for
its young, and all the time imposed upon
by crowd of lazy insects that prey upon
it, eat the food it collects, take up room
in its dwelling and pay no rent. Some of
the ungrateful creatures even eat the eggs
or the young bees
One of the worst of these squatters is
called the "stylops." 1t is a curious look
ing thing, with o sort of web foot In the
rear 1t lives on the body of the bee until
its young are Matched and then goes with
the bee into the nest where they feed on
the young bees. The creature, when full
grown is about quarter of an inch long.
There are scores OF other parasites that
the bees have to support. One of them
is curiously like the humble bee--or hum
BILE bee-itself.
This tramp lives in the cell of the bee,
and has good time eating the food,
which the poor buzzer has collected.
There are others that look so nearly like
their unwilling beasts that they can
| scarcely be told apart.
One of the most interesting kinds of
bee is the carpenter which bores tun-
/ i
vided with gimlet of steel. This busy
fellow is about as largea as humble bee,
but is not quite as hairy. The little
worker bores through about a quarter
of an inch day with its sharp Jaws, that
tear the wood into fine shreds. -
At first it goes across the grain of the
wood, but as soon as tunnel as long as
its body is bored it turns at right angles
and bores with the grain. Some of the
tunnels are eighteen inches long. You
can calculate for yourselves how long 1t
takes this busy little carpenter TO dig out
its nest, which 1t is preparing for its eggs.
Sometimes there are two tunnels and
they always run in each direction from
the opening. 1t is thought that some
times these tunnels are used year after
year. If the bee cannot find an old one it
starts in at once to build a new one
As rule the tunnels are about a third
or half inch in diameter, but some old
ones have been found an inch wide. This
is thought to be due to the bees of a later
| season scratching out the walls to get
material for the partitions with which
| the cells are divided.
When an egg has been deposited on the
ball in the end of the tunnel the bee
makes a cell by wadding it up with bits
of wood scraped from tho sides, stuck
together with sort of glue that comes
from the mouth of the bee. These parti-
tions look very much like light-colored
gun-wads, and the cells are always just
little larger than the balls.
AS the egg matches and the bee worm
grows it eats away at the pollen all
through the winter. Along in the early
spring, some time in March, the bees
have developed into creatures with wings,
| and begin to cut their way out of the tun-
nels, breaking down the partitions and
crawling to the opening, where they be-
gin their life among the flowers.
There is pretty little green boring bee
known as the ceratina that chooses the
softer kinds of work in its Matchmaking.
Its jaws will not stand the hard labor Of
gnawing out the tough flbers of wood so
it bores into the pith of such shrubs as
blackberry, elder and syringa.
The cells are little less than half an
inch long and about sixth of an inch
wide. There are about five cells in each
tunnel, one for each egg, and the dirt par
titions are as smooth and regular as if
made with plaster and q trowel by a
mason.
The females of this family live a year.
but the males only exist for few days
in the form that we know them as bees
All these bees that bore into places to
deposit their eggs are known as wild bees
and do not live together in swarms. like
the honey bees that give US such deli
cious sweets. They are quite different
in appearance, as rule, but there is one
family that resembles the honey bee very
closely.
1t is known as the aground been be-
cause it makes it home by boring in the
earth.
This bee begins digging quite early in
the spring, when the soil is dry. 1t goes
at the ground with its spadelike jaws and
busy feet with a restless energy, and soon
has hole about six inches deep sunk in
the dirt. a little pile of sand on the out
side marks the opening, and it is hard to
tell the hole of the ground bee from the
ant hill.
She digs with her jaws and throws out
the dirt with her legs. The fore feet arc
used like hands, to pass the load to the
hind feet, and the bee runs backward and
dumps the digging on the pile outside.
The cells are dug sideways off from the
The first egg is laid on a pollen bali in
the upper cell, and so on. The bee pre-
pares the pollen inside of the cells knead-
ing it into balls just as bakers knead
bread dough.
When the bee flies home she does not
go straight in, for she knows that there
are enemies on the watch to steal the pol
len and the eggs. So she hovers about
and flies hither and thither without going
hi 4,Tn IA
down some feet from her front door and
walks as far as she can TO her home. Thus
she puts the beetles and other tramp bugs
off the track.
The habit of the cuckoo in squatting in
the nests Of other birds Is well known.
and there is bee known as the Cuckoo
beef that never digs or bores for herself
but hunts around for the nice
homes of ground bees that it