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Updated: June 1, 2025
There is no great harm done: it is quite possible to enjoy the few sweets of existence without knowing the Halicti. Nevertheless, when questioned persistently, these humble creatures with no history can tell us some very singular things; and their acquaintance is not to be disdained if we would enlarge our ideas upon the bewildering swarm of this world.
They hibernate in the first hiding-places that offer. In the spring, the females, fecundated since the autumn, come out: the Cylindrical Halicti from their cells, the Zebra Halicti from their various shelters, the Early Halicti apparently from their chambers, like the first.
On the other hand, the Anthophorae and the Halicti, two species of Wild Bees whose grubs weave no cocoon, delicately glaze the inside of their earthen cells and give them the gloss of polished ivory. The structure, whose axis is nearly always vertical and whose orifice faces upwards so as not to let the honey escape, varies a little in shape according to the supporting base.
He has, however, found two specimens of Nomada, sexfasciata in the cells of the long-horned bee, Eucera longicornis. He also states, that while some species are constant in their attacks on certain Halicti and Andrenæ, others attack different species of these genera indiscriminately. The observations of Mr. Emerton enable us still further to clear up the history of this obscure visitor.
It gives me two hundred and fifty Halicti. Well, in this number of Bees, collected in the burrow before any have emerged, I perceive none, absolutely none but females; or, to be mathematically accurate, I find just one male, one alone; and he is so small and feeble that he dies without quite succeeding in divesting himself of his nymphal bands. This solitary male is certainly accidental.
Here are the Macrocerae and the Eucerae, whose males are proudly horned; the Dasypodae, who carry an ample brush of bristles on their hind-legs for a reaping implement; the Andrenae, so manyfold in species; the slender-bellied Halicti. If I tried to continue this record of the guests of my thistles, it would muster almost the whole of the honey-yielding tribe.
Each spring she needs new quarters. And there are plenty of them. Can this mustering of the Halicti be due to a wish to resume the old intercourse with their friends and relations? Do the natives of the same burrow, of the same hamlet, recognize one another? Are they inclined to do their work among themselves rather than in the company of strangers?
Hence the flourishing colonies of the Anthophoræ, the Osmiæ, the Euceræ, the Halicti, and other makers of honey, while the hunters of prey work in isolation; hence the societies in which the bee displays its admirable talents, the supreme expression of instinct. This is what I should say if I were a "transformist."
It halts immediately; and hitherto has not succeeded, among the Xylocopae, in passing beyond this first obscure line of love. Among other Apiens, this groping idea assumes other forms. The Chalicodomae of the out-houses, which are building-bees, the Dasypodae and Halicti, which dig holes in the earth, unite in large colonies to construct their nests.
In February, after a hard winter, when the snow had lain on the ground for a fortnight, I wanted once more to look into the matter of my Halicti. I was in bed with pneumonia and at the point of death, to all appearances. I had little or no pain, thank God, but extreme difficulty in living.
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