Fabricius did not commit himself with his expression Anthidium, which
alludes to the love of flowers, but neither did he mention anything
characteristic: as all Bees have the same passion in a very high degree,
I see no reason to treat the Anthidia as more zealous looters than the
others. If he had known their cotton nests, perhaps the Scandinavian
naturalist would have given them a more logical denomination. As for me,
in a language wherein technical parade is out of place, I will call them
the Cotton-bees.
The term requires some limiting. To judge by my finds, in fact, the old
genus Anthidium, that of the classifying entomologists, comprises in my
district two very different corporations. One is known to us and works
exclusively in wadding; the other, which we are about to study, works in
resin, without ever having recourse to cotton. Faithful to my extremely
simple principle of defining the worker, as far as possible, by his
work, I will call the members of this guild the Resin-bees. Thus
confining myself to the data supplied by my observations, I divide the
Anthidium group into equal sections, of equal importance, for which I
demand special generic titles; for it is highly illogical to call the
carders of wool and the kneaders of resin by the same name. I surrender
to those whom it concerns the honour of effecting this reform in the
orthodox fashion.
Good luck, the friend of the persevering, made me acquainted in
different parts of Vaucluse with four Resin-bees whose singular trade
no one had yet suspected. To-day, I find them all four again in my own
neighbourhood. They are the following: Anthidium septemdentatum, LATR.,
A. bellicosum, LEP., A. quadrilobum, LEP., and A. Latreillii, LEP.
The first two make their nests in deserted Snail-shells; the other two
shelter their groups of cells sometimes in the ground, sometimes under a
large stone. We will first discuss the inhabitants of the Snail-shell.
I made a brief reference to them in an earlier chapter, when speaking of
the distribution of the sexes. This mere allusion, suggested by a study
of a different kind, must now be amplified. I return to it with fuller
particulars.
The stone-heaps in the Roman quarries near Serignan, which I have so
often visited in search of the nests of the Osmia who takes up her abode
in Snail-shells, supply me also with the two Resin-bees installed
in similar quarters. When the Field-mouse has left behind him a rich
collection of empty shells scattered all round his hay mattress under
the slab, there is always a hope of finding some Snail-shells plugged
with mud and, here and there, mixed with them, a few Snail-shells closed
with resin. The two Bees work next door to each other, one using clay,
the other gum. The excellence of the locality is responsible for this
frequent cohabitation, shelter being provided by the broken stone from
the quarry and lodgings by the shells which the Mouse has left behind.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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