United States or Zambia ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
All that I had to do was to lay some reed-stumps horizontally within her reach, in the immediate neighbourhood of her usual haunts, namely, the nests of the Mason-bee of the Sheds. Lastly, I succeeded without difficulty in making her build her nests in the privacy of my study, with glass tubes for a house. The result surpassed my hopes.
There is one precaution to be taken: the villages must be protected against the passers-by, who might inadvertently trample them under foot. I surround each of them with a palisade of reed-stumps. In the centre I plant a danger-signal, a post with a paper flag. The sections of the paths thus marked are forbidden ground; none of the household will walk upon them.
When the moment of hatching comes, those two windows will always remain open to give the swarm entire liberty to go in and out as it pleases. The glass tubes and the reed-stumps are laid here and there, in fine disorder, close to the heap of cocoons and all in a horizontal position, for the Osmia will have nothing to do with upright reeds.
Thus perished the strongest of them all, the Great Capricorn, in my artificial oak-wood cells and even in my reed-stumps closed with their natural partitions. They have not the strength, or rather the patient art; and the larva, more highly gifted, works for them. It gnaws with indomitable perseverance, an essential to success even for the strong; it digs with amazing foresight.
I enclose them in spacious reed-stumps, equal in diameter to the natal cell. The obstacle to be pierced is the natural diaphragm, a yielding partition two or three millimetres thick. The less vibrant ones succumb, stopped by the frail barrier. What would it be if they had to pass through a thickness of oak?
I fall back upon a fissure, a lack of continuity somewhere, although my examination fails to discover any on the Mason-bee's nest. I was better served in another case. Leucopsis dorsigera, FAB., settles her eggs on the larva of the Diadem Anthidium, who sometimes makes her nest in reed-stumps. I have repeatedly seen her insert her auger through a slight rupture in the side of the reed.
All that I had to do was to lay some reed-stumps horizontally within her reach, in the immediate neighbourhood of her usual haunts, namely, the nests of the Mason-bee of the Sheds. Lastly, I succeeded without difficulty in making her build her nests in the privacy of my study, with glass tubes for a house. The result surpassed my hopes.
When the moment of hatching comes, those two windows will always remain open to give the swarm entire liberty to go in and out as it pleases. The glass tubes and reed-stumps are laid here and there, in fine disorder, close to the heaps of cocoons and all in a horizontal position, for the Osmia will have nothing to do with upright reeds.
A vestige of sawdust, less than a pinch of snuff, represents all their work. I expected more from those sturdy tools, their mandibles. But, as we have seen before, the tool does not make the workman. In spite of their boring-implements, the hermits die in my cases for lack of skill. I subject others to less arduous tests. I enclose them in spacious reed-stumps, equal in diameter to the natal cell.
Word Of The Day