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To her thinking this can be nothing but the Chalicodoma's portion. We ourselves would be beguiled, in the Osmia's absence. She lays her eggs in this deceptive cell. Her mistake, which is easy to understand, does not in any way detract from her great talents as a parasite, but it is a serious matter for the future larva.
The Chalicodoma's work can bear comparison with ours. To economise labour and mortar, the Bee employs coarse materials, big pieces of gravel, which to her represent hewn stones. She chooses them carefully one by one, picks out the hardest bits, generally with corners which, fitting one into the other, give mutual support and contribute to the solidity of the whole.
It is done at last, after infinite labour. The honey appears. The Stelis slips through and, on the surface of the provisions, side by side with the Chalicodoma's eggs, the number varying from time to time. The victuals will be the common property of all the new arrivals, whether the son of the house or strangers.
It goes without saying that the surface layer, even of the lower storeys, can contain males without invalidating the rule, for this layer may always be looked upon as the Chalicodoma's last work. Everything therefore contributes to show that, in the Mason-bee, the females take the lead in the order of primogeniture.
At the foot of the pebble, the Stelis collects a little of that red earth which characterizes our stony plateaus grown with lavender and thyme; she makes it into mortar by wetting it with saliva; and with the pellets thus prepared she fills up the entrance-shaft, displaying all the care and art of a regular master-mason. Only, the work clashes in colour with the Chalicodoma's.
That faith I possessed; and well for me that I did. On the 25th of July the date deserves to be recorded I saw, or rather seemed to see, something move on the Chalicodoma's larva. Was it an illusion born of my hopes? Was it a bit of diaphanous down stirred by my breath? It was not an illusion, it was not a bit of down, it was really and truly a grub. What a moment, followed by what perplexities!
In those aerial nests, swinging at the end of a twig, not a Dioxys, a Stelis, an Anthrax, a Leucopsis, those dread ravagers of the other two Masons; never any Osmiae, Megachiles or Anthidia, those lodgers in the old buildings. The absence of the latter is easily explained. The Chalicodoma's masonry does not last long on its frail support.
The lime of the road, mixed with saliva, yields a harder cement than red clay would do. At any rate, the Chalicodoma's nest is more or less white because of the source of its materials. When a red speck, a few millimetres wide, appears on this pale background, it is a sure sign that a Stelis has been that way.
Latreille's Osmia is nearly always found with the Three-horned Osmia at the Chalicodoma's. The real builder of the city and the exploiter of the labour of others work together, at the same period, form a common swarm and live in perfect harmony, each Bee of the two species attending to her business in peace. They share and share alike, as though by tacit agreement.
The Mason's cocoons are taken from the cells, inspected without, opened and inspected within. My lens explores their innermost recesses; speck by speck, it explores the Chalicodoma's slumbering larva; it explores the inner walls of the cells. Nothing, nothing, nothing! For a fortnight and more, nests were rejected and heaped up in a corner; my study was crammed with them.
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