One of these insects is a very little species, barely a quarter of an
inch in length. Its colour is black, with some silver white hair on
the face, and the legs are paler than the body. The abdomen has a long
footstalk. Its scientific name is _Psen pallipes_. Like the insect
which has just been described, it provisions its young with aphides.]
Upholsterer-Bees.
In another part of this volume we shall see how certain caterpillars
construct abodes for themselves, by cutting off portions of the
leaves or bark of plants, and uniting them by means of silk into a
uniform and compact texture; but this scarcely appears so wonderful
as the prospective labours of some species of bees for the lodgment
of their progeny. We allude to the solitary bees, known by the name
of the leaf-cutting bees, but which may be denominated more generally
_upholsterer-bees_, as there are some of them which use other materials
beside leaves.
One species of our little upholsterers has been called the poppy-bee
(_Osmia papaveris_, Latr.), from its selecting the scarlet petals of
the poppy as tapestry for its cells. Kirby and Spence express their
doubts whether it is indigenous to this country: we are almost certain
that we have seen the nests in Scotland. (J. R.) At Largs, in Ayrshire,
a beautiful sea-bathing village on the Firth of Clyde, in July, 1814,
we found in a footpath a great number of the cylindrical perforations
of the poppy-bee. [In his catalogue of British Hymenoptera, Mr. F.
Smith makes the following remarks with regard to this insect. "The
poppy-bee, _Anthocopa papaveris_, is closely allied to this genus
(_Osmia_), and may indeed be placed before it as a connecting link
with the _Osmia_. This interesting insect (_l'abeille Tapissiere_),
of Réaumur, has been supposed to inhabit this country, specimens
having been placed in the collection at the British Museum. But it was
with much regret that I discovered, when engaged upon the catalogue
of British bees for the Museum, and had occasion to examine each
individual specimen with care, that in the first place there was no
satisfactory evidence of the locality, and that in the next place, all
the males associated with the series were those of _Osmia adunca_, of
Panzear." For these reasons, this species has been excluded from the
list of British bees.] Réaumur remarked that the cells of this bee
which he found at Bercy, were situated in a northern exposure, contrary
to what he had remarked in the mason-bee, which prefers the south. The
cells at Largs, however, were on an elevated bank, facing the south,
near Sir Thomas Brisbane's observatory. With respect to exposure,
indeed, no certain rule seems applicable; for the nests of mason-bees
which we found on the wall of Greenwich Park faced the north-east, and
we have often found carpenter-bees make choice of a similar situation.
In one instance, we found carpenter-bees working indifferently on the
north-east and south-west side of the same post.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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