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Updated: May 6, 2025
One bee, the Trypoxylon aurifrons, builds a nest of clay like a squat round bottle or carafe; generally in rows, one beside the other, on a branch, or in the corners of a building. The melipona bees are the most numerous of the honey-producing insects, their colonies being composed of vast numbers of individuals. They are smaller than the English hive-bee, and have no sting.
The brambles house several of these: Solenius vagus, who stores up Flies; Psen atratus, who provides her grubs with a heap of Plant-lice; Trypoxylon figulus, who feeds them with Spiders. Solenius vagus digs her gallery in a bramble-stick that is lopped short, but still fresh and green. The house of this Fly-huntress, therefore, suffers from damp, as the sap enters, especially on the lower floors.
Besides the Pelopaeus, there were three or four kinds of Trypoxylon, a genus also found in Europe, and which some naturalists have supposed to be parasitic, because the legs are not furnished with the usual row of strong bristles for digging, characteristic of the family to which it belongs.
These instances seem to show that the Psen arranges her laying in a succession of females and a succession of males; but they tell us nothing of the relative order of the two series. From the Spider-huntress, Trypoxylon figulus, I learnt nothing decisive. She appeared to me to rove about from one bramble to the next, utilizing galleries which she has not dug herself.
Their habits are similar to those of the Pelopaeus- namely, they carry off the clay in their mandibles, and have a different song when they hasten away with the burden to that which they sing whilst at work. Trypoxylon albitarse, which is a large black kind, three-quarters of an inch in length, makes a tremendous fuss while building its cell.
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