t of which I do not approve. And now, O
my Osmiae, I leave you a free field!

The work begins with a thorough spring-cleaning of the home. Remnants
of cocoons, dirt consisting of spoilt honey, bits of plaster from broken
partitions, remains of dried Mollusc at the bottom of a shell: these and
much other insanitary refuse must first of all disappear. Violently the
Osmia tugs at the offending object and tears it out; and then off she
goes, in a desperate hurry, to dispose of it far away from the study.
They are all alike, these ardent sweepers: in their excessive zeal, they
fear lest they should block up the place with a speck of dust which they
might drop in front of the new house. The glass tubes, which I myself
have rinsed under the tap, are not exempt from a scrupulous cleaning.
The Osmia dusts them, brushes them thoroughly with her tarsi and then
sweeps them out backwards. What does she pick up? Not a thing. It makes
no difference: as a conscientious housewife, she gives the place a touch
of the broom nevertheless.

Now for the provisions and the partition-walls. Here the order of the
work changes according to the diameter of the cylinder. My glass tubes
vary greatly in dimensions. The largest have an inner width of a dozen
millimetres (Nearly half an inch.--Translator's Note.); the narrowest
measure six or seven. (About a quarter of an inch.--Translator's Note.)
In the latter, if the bottom suit her, the Osmia sets to work bringing
pollen and honey. If the bottom do not suit her, if the sorghum-pith
plug with which I have closed the rear-end of the tube be too irregular
and badly-joined, the Bee coats it with a little mortar. When this small
repair is made, the harvesting begins.

In the wider tubes, the work proceeds quite differently. At the moment
when the Osmia disgorges her honey and especially at the moment when,
with her hind-tarsi, she rubs the pollen-dust from her ventral brush,
she needs a narrow aperture, just big enough to allow of her passage.
I imagine that, in a straitened gallery, the rubbing of her whole body
against the sides gives the harvester a support for her brushing-work.
In a spacious cylinder, this support fails her; and the Osmia starts
with creating one for herself, which she does by narrowing the channel.
Whether it be to facilitate the storing of the victuals or for any other
reason, the fact remains that the Osmia housed in a wide tube begins
with the partitioning.

Her division is