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Updated: June 20, 2025
Now several Bees, however industrious in gathering honey, building party-walls and contriving receptacles for provisions, are less clever at preparing the resorts in which the cells are to be stacked. The abandoned chambers of the Chalicodoma, now larger than they were originally, through the addition of the hall of exit, are first-rate acquisitions for them.
But the grub which we know, the one that drains the bag of fat which may be a Chalicodoma larva or an Osmia larva, cannot move from its place, still less indulge in journeys of discovery through the thickness of a wall and the web of a cocoon.
I call for a descendant of the Chalicodoma and a descendant of the Osmia who have robbed their neighbours with gusto, when occasion offered, since the origin of their respective races, and who are working industriously to create a parasite happy in doing nothing. Have they succeeded? No. Will they succeed? Yes, people maintain. For the moment, nothing.
I then moved the tiles to the table in my study, in order to investigate their secrets with the most scrupulous care. And here such a disappointment as I have rarely known awaited me. The cells which I had seen, actually seen, with my own eyes, pierced by the probe two or three or even four times, contained but one Leucopsis-grub, one alone, eating away at its Chalicodoma.
Thus shod, I proceed. Next year, I resume my investigations, this time on the Anthrax of the Chalicodoma, who is my neighbor in the surrounding wastelands and will allow me to repeat my visits daily, morning and evening if need be. Taught by my earlier studies, I now know the exact period of the Bee's hatching and therefore of the Anthrax' laying, which must take place soon after.
Now the grub of the Anthrax "appears precisely at the exact moment when the larva of the Chalicodoma is attacked by that lethargy which precedes metamorphosis, and which renders it insensible, and during which the substance of the grub about to be transfigured into a bee commences to break down and resolve itself into a liquid pulp, for the processes of life always liquefy the grub before achieving the perfect insect."
All solitary though she be on her boulder, which would seem the proper thing to keep away exploiters, the scourge of dense populations, the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles is no less sorely tried. My notes abound in cases such as the following: of the nine cells in one dome, three are occupied by the Anthrax, two by the Leucopsis, two by the Stelis, one by the Chalcis and the ninth by the Mason.
The Chalicodoma "also is aware of the economic advantages of an old abandoned nest"; the Anthophora is careful to establish her family "at the least expense," and profits on occasion by galleries which have been mined by previous generations; adapting herself to these new conditions, she repairs the tunnels which she did not construct "and economizes her forces."
The Mason-bee of the Sheds, on the other hand, supplies free lodgings to two species of Osmiae, Osmia tricornis, LATR., and Osmia Latreillii, SPIN., both of whom are quite common. The Three-horned Osmia frequents by preference the habitations of the Bees that build their nests in populous colonies, such as the Chalicodoma of the Sheds and the Hairy-footed Anthophora.
The hoard of provisions is too large for its requirements in a cell of the Chalicodoma of the Sheds; how much more so in a cell of the Chalicodoma of the Pebbles! She eats not a half, hardly a third of it. The rest remains as it was, untouched. We see here, in the destruction of the Mason's egg, a flagrant waste which aggravates the crime.
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