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True Bees — Part 4

The blunt-tongued burrowing bees live much like those bees which we have just mentioned, constructing their burrows in hard clay soil or in the cracks in stone walls, but the bees of the allied family Prosopidae which have been called by Ashmead the obtuse-tongued carpenter bees, burrow into the twigs of bramble, elder and other shrubs, in which after extracting the pith, they construct their cells filled with pollen and honey. The Prosopidae used to be considered parasitic, but the English observer, Frederick Smith, discovered their true habits a good many years ago. Mr. R. C. L. Perkins has recently stated, however, that some of the Hawaiian bees belonging to his genus Neoprosopis are genuine parasites.

Life History of a Bumblebee

(Bombus fervidus Fabr.)

In our generalization on the habits of the true bees we said little about the bumblebees, preferring to let this typical life history speak for itself. The bumblebees belong to the group of social bees, although their communities are by no means as large or as perfect as those of the domesticated honey bee, nor in fact is the differentiation of the worker class so marked as with the honey bee. The workers, in fact, more nearly resemble the females and have few of the structural peculiarities which are so evident with the workers of the honey bee. The bumblebee worker stings severely and this fact makes the close study of their community life rather difficult. It is comparatively easy, however, to study a bumblebee's nest. Marlatt, in the Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, tells how the boys in Kansas avoid the stings and gather the honey. He said that they (and he was one of them) were led to rob these nests more from the excitement caused by the danger of being stung than to secure the honey, which, in fact, was not only rank and unpalatable but in the early fall, during the haying season, was small in quantity. The method followed was to take a one-or-two-gallon jug, such as is commonly used to carry water to haymakers, fill it partly with water and place it, with the cork removed, within two or three feet of the nest. The bees were then thoroughly aroused by beating the nest, immediately after which the brave boys removed themselves hurriedly to a safe distance. The enraged bees would swarm out and begin flying about in widening circles to discover the enemy. The jug would at once attract their attention and numbers would fly about it and over its open mouth, which, by reason of the air set in motion by their wings, would give an answering roar to their angry humming. Excited beyond measure by this noise, the bees would fly at the mouth of the jug and one after another would pop into it--the noise produced by those within still further attracting those without--until all had entered. A second disturbance of the nest would serve to draw out and dispose of any of the remaining fighting worker-bees, after which the robbing of the nest was easy. After robbing the nest the water and bees in the jug were emptied out on the ground and the bees, although apparently drowned, would soon recover and start off to found new colonies which other boys would probably rob. In later years when Mr. Marlatt became interested in the collection and study of insects this method was employed with unvarying success in the examination of bumblebees' nests in order to secure parasites and the guest insects which inhabit these nests. This method seems to be a discovery of the western farm-boys, since the writer, although he robbed bumblebees' nests in central New York when a boy was never ingenious enough to invent such a capital method of avoiding stings.