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 made by a dab of clay placed at right angles to the
axis of the cylinder, at a distance from the bottom determined by the
ordinary length of a cell. This wad is not a complete round; it is more
crescent-shaped, leaving a circular space between it and one side of the
tube. Fresh layers are swiftly added to the dab of clay; and soon the
tube is divided by a partition which has a circular opening at the side
of it, a sort of dog-hole through which the Osmia will proceed to knead
the Bee-bread. When the victualling is finished and the egg laid upon
the heap, the hole is closed and the filled-up partition becomes the
bottom of the next cell. Then the same method is repeated, that is to
say, in front of the just completed ceiling a second partition is built,
again with a side-passage, which is stouter, owing to its distance from
the centre, and better able to withstand the numerous comings and goings
of the housewife than a central orifice, deprived of the direct support
of the wall, could hope to be. When this partition is ready, the
provisioning of the second cell is effected; and so on until the wide
cylinder is completely stocked.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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