st, as
is done by the Honey bees."]

[Footnote 3: "Since writing the above I have opened one of the new holes
of Xylocopa, which was commenced between three and four weeks ago, in a
pine slat used in the staging of the greenhouse. The dimensions were as
follows:--Opening fully 3-8 wide; depth 7-16; whole length of tunnel 6
5-16 inches. The tunnel branched both ways from the hole. One end, from
opening, was 2 5-8, containing three cells, two with larva and pollen,
the third empty. The other side of the opening, or the rest of the
tunnel, was empty, with the exception of the old bee (only one) at work.
I think this was the work of one bee, and, as near as I can judge, about
twenty-five days' work. Width of tunnel inside at widest 9-16 inch.

"I have just found a Xylocopa bobbing at one of the holes, and in order
to ascertain the depth of the tunnel, and to see whether there were any
others in them, I sounded with a pliable rod, and found others in one
side, at a depth of five and one half inches; the other side was four
inches deep without bees. The morning was cool, so that the object in
bobbing could not have been to introduce fresh currents of air, but must
have had some relation to those inside. Their legs on such occasions
are, as I have noticed, loaded with pollen."]

CHAPTER II.

THE HOME OF THE BEES.

[_Concluded._]

While the Andrena and Halictus bees, whose habits we now describe, are
closely allied in form to the Hive bee, socially they are the
"mud-sills" of bee society, ranking among the lowest forms of the family
of bees. Their burrowing habits ally them with the ants, from whose
nests their own burrows can scarcely be distinguished. Their economy
does not seem to demand the exercise of so much of a true reasoning
power and pliable instinct as characterizes bees, such as the Honey and
Humble bee, which possess a high architectural skill. Moreover they are
not social; they have no part in rearing and caring for their young, a
fact that lends so much interest to the history of the Hive and Humble
bee. In this respect they are far below the wasps, a family belonging
next below in the system of Nature.

A glance at the drawing (Fig. 28), of a burrow, with its side galleries,
of the Andrena vicina, reveals the economy of one of our most common
forms. Quite early in spring, when the sun and vernal breezes have dried
up the soil, and the fields exchange their rusty hues for the rich green
verdure o