Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 1, 2025
Let us look at her from another point of view, whose full importance will not be apparent until the end; let us speak of something which I was very far from suspecting when I was so assiduously watching the nests of my Mason-bees. The same cell can receive the Leucopsis' probe a number of times, at intervals of several days.
"Insect Life": chapters 4 and 5. This rids us of one hypothesis: the sense of direction is not exercised by the antennae. Then where is its seat? I do not know. What I do know is that the Mason-bees without antennae, though they go back to the cells, do not resume work.
Could not those inquisitive filaments, which seem to guide the insect when hunting, also guide it when travelling? This remained to be seen; and I did see. I took some Mason-bees and amputated their antennae with the scissors, as closely as I could. These maimed ones were then carried to a distance and released. They returned to the nest with as little difficulty as the others. Cf.
The conclusion therefore is exactly the same in the case of all three Osmiae. These conclusions, as my notes show, apply likewise, in every respect, to the various species of Mason-bees; and one clear and simple rule stands out from this collection of facts.
Nowhere do I find data collected under such conditions; for which reason, however much I might wish it, it is impossible for me to bring the evidence of others in support of the few conclusions which I myself have formed. My Mason-bees, with their nests hanging on the walls of the arch which I have mentioned, lent themselves to continuous experiment better than any other Hymenopteron.
If nothing happened to disturb this first impression, the insect would be guided by it in returning. This would explain the homing of my Mason-bees carried to a distance of two or three miles amid strange surroundings. But, when the insects have been sufficiently impressed by their conveyance to the east, there comes the rapid twirl, first this way round, then that.
At five o'clock, the arrivals number seven of the pink Mason-bees, whom I thought that I had bewildered by a long and circuitous drive, and six of the blue Mason-bees, who came to Font-Claire by the direct route.
What the Mason-bees and the others taught us erewhile the Lycosa now confirms in her manner. Incapable of taking fresh pains to build herself a second dwelling, when the first is done for, she will go on the tramp, she will break into a neighbour's house, she will run the risk of being eaten should she not prove the stronger, but she will never think of making herself a home by starting afresh.
Three more came home before my eyes, each with her load of pollen, an outward and visible sign of the work done on the journey. As it was growing late, our observations had to cease. When the sun goes down, the Mason-bees leave the nest and take refuge somewhere or other, perhaps under the tiles of the roofs, or in little corners of the walls.
The noblest tranquillity and the most passionate emotion are here fused in a manner of adorable naturalness. From the church it is delightful to escape into the cloisters, flooded with sunlight, where the swallows skim and the brown hawks circle and the mason-bees are at work upon their cells among the carvings. The arcades of the two cloisters are the final triumph of Lombard terra-cotta.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking