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Updated: June 5, 2025
Excavations made in January showed me my mistake. The old homes are empty, are falling to pieces owing to the prolonged effect of the rains. The Zebra Halictus has something better than these muddy hovels: she has snug corners in the stone-heaps, hiding-places in the sunny walls and many other convenient habitations. And so the natives of a village become scattered far and wide.
The tiny pitcher looks as if it were varnished with galenite. The impermeability which the potter obtains by the brutal infusion of his mineral ingredients the Halictus achieves with the soft polisher of her tongue moistened with saliva. Thus protected, the larva will enjoy all the advantages of a dry berth, even in rain-soaked ground.
Some there are that exceed the dimensions of the Common Wasp; others might be compared with the House-fly, or are even smaller. In the midst of this variety, which is the despair of the novice, one characteristic remains invariable. Every Halictus carries the clearly-written certificate of her guild. Examine the last ring, at the tip of the abdomen, on the dorsal surface.
One would be inclined, at first sight, to say that these groups are accounted for by the insect's recollection of its birthplace, by the fact that the villagers, after dispersing during the winter, return to their hamlet. But it is not thus that things happen: the Halictus scorns to-day the place that once suited her. I never see her occupy the same patch of ground for two years in succession.
When none as yet, even among her near kinswomen, dares to sally forth from winter-quarters, she pluckily goes to work, shine the sun ever so little. Like the Zebra Halictus, she has two generations a year, one in spring and one in summer; like her, too, she settles by preference in the hard ruts of the country roads.
The morning was cool, so that the object in bobbing could not have been to introduce fresh currents of air, but must have had some relation to those inside. While the Andrena and Halictus bees, whose habits we now describe, are closely allied in form to the Hive bee, socially they are the "mud-sills" of bee society, ranking among the lowest forms of the family of bees.
When opened, they were found to contain several bees with their young. September 2nd, of this year, the same kind of bee was found in holes, and just ready to leave the cell. It is probable that these bees winter over. We have incidentally noticed the presence in the nests of Andrena and Halictus of a stranger bee, clad in gay, fantastic hues, which lives a parasitic life on its hosts.
What does it want? I give it a Bee, a Halictus, to see if it will settle on the insect, as the Sitares and Oil-beetles would not fail to do. My offer is scorned. It is not a winged conveyance that my prisoners require. Bramble-bees and Others: chaps. xii. to xiv.
Despite the years, I still see the stone whence came the resonant notes of the little Toads, the parapet of currant-bushes, the notary's garden of Eden. These trifles make the best part of my life. The Halictus sees in the same way the blade of grass whereon she rested in her first flight, the bit of gravel which her claw touched in her first climb to the top of the shaft.
The ground just here is very rough, consisting of stones and dust mixed with a little mould and held together by the closely interwoven roots of the couch-grass. But, owing to its nature, it is thoroughly well drained, a condition always in request among Bees and Wasps that have underground cells. Let us forget for a moment what the Zebra Halictus and the Early Halictus have taught us.
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