But she must not stay. So the work bees form a ball about her, until she dies for lack of air. I have told you how wasps kill bees. Birds eat bees. Some birds break into the hive to get honey. Bears like honey. They break up wild bees’ nests. Hens and toads eat bees. Moths make the worst trouble in bee-hives. In June or July, the work bees kill all the drones. They do not wish to feed them when it is cold. Bees lay up honey to eat when the flowers are dead and gone. In the winter, bees sleep most of the time. They need some food to eat when they rouse. As soon as spring comes, they come out and go to work. LESSON XXIV. EARTH BEES. Do all bees build in hives? No. Wild bees like to build in hollow trees. In hot lands, some bees build in holes in the rock. Swarms of bees that leave hives find odd places to live in. I knew of a swarm that found a hole in the roof of a house. The bees got into the roof and lived there five years. When a man took them out, they had two big tubs full of comb. Is it not odd that bees can make so much wax from their small wax-bags? Did you ever find in the earth the nest of a humble-bee? The humble-bee queen works. Humble-bees dig holes in the earth with their front feet. [Illustration: A CITY IN A TREE.] When they have made a hall and a room, they make a nest. It is of grass, or leaves, or hay, cut fine. They lay eggs in the nest. They make honey in large combs. The combs are more soft and dark than those which the hive bee makes. Field mice and moles eat these bees and their combs. One little bee, that lives alone, saws out a nest in a post or tree. She makes one room over the other. In each she puts an egg and food. She seals the door up with a paste made of sawdust. Then she goes off and dies. The next spring out come the new bees. They know how to get food and make homes, just as the mother did. One kind of bee makes a house much like an ant-hill. She makes a long hall. From the hall she opens small rooms. In each room she puts food, in a ball like a pea. Then she lays an egg by it, and leaves the small bee to grow up alone. LESSON XXV. OTHER BEES. One bee is called a mason bee. She takes fine mud or clay, to make a cell. The cell is the shape of an urn. Now and then, she builds this urn in an empty snail shell. One kind of the mason bees is of a dark green color. Mason bees are very small. Some mason bees live in holes in the ground. In the hole they make a clay cell like a box. But they are so neat that they do not like to see a mud wall. What does the bee do to her wall? She cuts out bits of nice, soft leaves, and lines her cell! Some bees take bits of green leaves, as of the plum tree. But they like bright color best. One kind of bee lines her cell with the petals of roses. When she has glued them all over the cell, she then puts into it some food and an egg.