Insect architecture / [Anon].

  • James Rennie
Date:
1830
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Insect architecture / [Anon]. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    us avery complete nest of carder-bees, which differs from those described by Reaumur, in being made, not of moss, but. withered grass. With this exception, we find that his account agrees accurately 5 our own observation.* The carder-bees select for their nest a es ex-- . cavation about half a foot in diameter; but when they cannot. find one to suit their purpose, they under- take the Herculean task of digging one themselves. They cover this hollow with a dome of moss—some- times, as. we have’ ascertained, of withered grass. They make use, indeed, of whatever materials may be with their reach; for they do not attempt to bring any thing froma distance, not even when they are deprived of the greater portion by an experimental naturalist. Their only method of transporting ma- terials to the building is by pushing them along the ground—the bee, for that purpose, working back- wards, with its head turned from the nest. If there is only one bee engaged. in this labour, as usually happens in the early spring, when a nest is founded by a solitary female who has outlived the winter, she transports her little bundles of moss or grass by suc- cessive backward pushes, till she gets them home. Inthe latter part of the season, when the hive is populous and can afford more hands, there is an in- genious division of this labour. A file of bees, to the number sometimes of half a dozen, is established, from the nest to the moss or grass which they intend to use, the heads of all the file of bees being turned fromthe nest and towards the material. The last bee of the file lays hold of some of the moss with her mandibles, disentangles it from the rest, and having carded it with her fore-legs into a sort of felt or small bundle, she pushes it under her body to the PORTE 1 2 VOL. IV. 6*
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