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Updated: June 5, 2025
The Halictus dives into it with a rush; but, however prompt her disappearance underground, the Gnat is there, perched on the threshold with her eyes turned to the entrance, waiting for the Bee to come out, so that she may visit the honey-jars in her turn. When the owner of the house ascends, the other draws back a little, just enough to leave a free passage and no more.
The Halictus mother has not these domestic necessities, as her provisions keep more easily; but still she might well distribute a second portion of flour to the larvae, when their appetite attains its height. I can see nothing else to explain the open doors of the cells during the feeding-period.
Two dangers threaten it: to be immured in a casket whence the Fly can never issue; or else to die out of doors, in the unkindly air, when the Bee sweeps out the restored cells. To avoid this twofold peril, it decamps before the door is closed, before the July Halictus sets her house in order. Let us now see what comes of the parasite's intrusion.
Unable to make use of the paste so long as the harvester is kneading it, they go back to the open air and wait on the threshold for the Bee to come out. They return to the sunlight, calmly, with unhurried steps: a clear proof that nothing untoward has occurred in the depths where the Halictus works.
At this period, a little before July, if my spade unearth the cells of any one of my three Halicti, the result is always females, nothing but females, with exceedingly rare exceptions. True, it may be said that the second progeny is due to the mothers who knew the males in autumn and who would be able to nidify twice a year. The suggestion is not admissible. The Zebra Halictus confirms what I say.
A female population of two hundred and forty-nine Halicti implies other males than this abortion, or rather implies none at all. I therefore eliminate him as an accident of no value and conclude that, in the Cylindrical Halictus, the July generation consists of females only. The building-operations start again in the second week of July.
She thought, the feather-brain, that she was entering the Leaf-Cutter's establishment! She soon finds out her mistake; she meets the door-keeping Halictus, who administers a sharp correction. She makes off at full speed. And so with the others which, through inadvertence or ambition, seek to enter the burrow. The same intolerance exists among the different grandmothers.
The name of Early Halictus would better describe the almond-tree's little visitor. None of the melliferous clan, in my neighbourhood at least, is stirring as early as she is. She digs her burrows in February, an inclement month, subject to sudden returns of frost.
The other retaliates and tries to force her way in notwithstanding. Blows are exchanged. The fray ends by the defeat of the stranger, who goes off to pick a quarrel elsewhere. These little scenes afford us a glimpse of certain details of the highest interest in the habits of the Zebra Halictus. The mother who builds her nest in the spring no longer leaves her home, once her works are finished.
It also shows by its volume that several navvies have taken part in the work, for it would be impossible for a single Halictus to extract from the ground, convey to the surface and heap up so large a stack of rubbish in so short a time. At sunrise, when the fields around are still wet with dew, the Cylindrical Halictus leaves her underground passages and starts on her foraging.
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