rom
her harvest cannot fail to see it.

In a few minutes, the owner arrives and goes straight to where the nest
stood. She hovers gracefully over the vacant site, examines and alights
upon the exact spot where the stone used to lie. Here she walks about
for a long time, making persistent searches; then the Bee takes wing and
flies away to some distance. Her absence is of short duration. Here she
is back again. The search is resumed, walking and flying, and always on
the site which the nest occupied at first. A fresh fit of exasperation,
that is to say, an abrupt flight across the osier-bed, is followed by a
fresh return and a renewal of the vain search, always upon the mark left
by the shifted pebble. These sudden departures, these prompt returns,
these persevering inspections of the deserted spot continue for a long
time, a very long time, before the Mason is convinced that her nest is
gone. She has certainly seen it, has seen it over and over again in its
new position, for sometimes she has flown only a few inches above it;
but she takes no notice of it. To her, it is not her nest, but the
property of another Bee.

Often the experiment ends without so much as a single visit to the
boulder which I have moved two or three yards away: the Bee goes off and
does not return. If the distance be less, a yard for instance, the
Mason sooner or later alights on the stone which supports her abode. She
inspects the cell which she was building or provisioning a little while
before, repeatedly dips her head into it, examines the surface of the
pebble step by step and, after long hesitations, goes and resumes her
search on the site where the home ought to be. The nest that is no
longer in its natural place is definitely abandoned, even though it be
but a yard away from the original spot. Vainly does the Bee settle on
it time after time: she cannot recognize it as hers. I was convinced of
this on finding it, several days after the experiment, in just the same
condition as when I moved it. The open cell half-filled with honey was
still open and was surrendering its contents to the pillaging Ants; the
cell that was building had remained unfinished, with not a single layer
added to it. The Bee, obviously, may have returned to it; but she had
not resumed work upon it. The transplanted dwelling was abandoned for
good and all.

I will not deduce the strange paradox that the Mason-bee, though capable
of finding her nest from the verge of