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Updated: April 30, 2025
No, the Stelis never abandoned the delicate art of cotton-weaving to break down walls and to grind cement, a class of work far too unattractive to efface the memory of the joys of harvesting amid the flowers. Indolence has not evolved her from an Anthidium. She has always been what she is to-day: a patient artificer in her own line, a steady worker at the task that has fallen to her share.
But here everything happens in broad daylight; and this demands more cunning in the method of installation. Besides, it is the one favourable moment for the Dioxys. If she waits for the Mason-bee to lay, it is too late, for the parasite is not able to break down doors, as the Stelis does.
I see the insect make a score of attempts, one after the other, without succeeding in piercing the tough wrapper of the Stelis. Should the instrument not penetrate, it retreats into its sheath and the insect resumes its scrutiny of the cocoon, sounding it point by point with the tips of its antennae. Then further thrusts are tried until one succeeds.
Everything has to submit: cell, provisions, scarce-weaned nurselings. I have already said how, in the Mason's absence, the Stelis perforates the dome of cell after cell, lays her eggs there and afterwards repairs the breach with a mortar made of red earth, which at once betrays the parasite's presence to a watchful eye.
In those aerial nests, swinging at the end of a twig, not a Dioxys, a Stelis, an Anthrax, a Leucopsis, those dread ravagers of the other two Masons; never any Osmiae, Megachiles or Anthidia, those lodgers in the old buildings. The absence of the latter is easily explained. The Chalicodoma's masonry does not last long on its frail support.
The Stelis does something of the kind; but who would think of proclaiming a relationship between the Chalicodoma and her? The two have nothing in common. I call for a scion of the Mason-bee of the Sheds who shall live by the art of breaking through ceilings.
It is done at last, after infinite labour. The honey appears. The Stelis slips through and, on the surface of the provisions, side by side with the Chalicodoma's eggs, the number varying from time to time. The victuals will be the common property of all the new arrivals, whether the son of the house or strangers.
She is so certain of her safety that I can take the Mason's nest in my hand, move it, put it down and take it up again without the insect's raising any objection: it continues its work even when my magnifying glass is placed over it. One of these heroines has come to inspect a nest of the Chalicodoma of the Walls, most of whose cells are occupied by the numerous cocoons of a parasite, the Stelis.
The Stelis exploited on my table is one victim more; and that is all. The interest does not lie there. The interest lies in the maneuvers of the insect, which I am able to follow under the most favorable conditions. Bent sharply at right angles, like a couple of broken matches, the antennae feel the cocoon with their tips alone.
We see the Stelis, therefore, at first a rabid miner, using her mandibles against the rock; next a kneader of clay and a plasterer restoring broken ceilings. Her trade does not seem one of the least arduous. Now what did she do before she took to parasitism?
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