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This string of fifteen appears to be rare; it was the only one that I found. My attempts at indoor rearing, pursued during two years with glass tubes or reeds, taught me that the Three-horned Osmia is not much addicted to long series. As though to decrease the difficulties of the coming deliverance, she prefers short galleries, in which only a part of the laying is stacked.
While exploiting, in friendly rivalry with the Three-horned Osmia, the galleries which the Mason-bee of the Sheds good-naturedly surrenders to both, Latreille's Osmia uses different materials for her partitions and her doors.
This string of fifteen appears to be rare; it was the only one that I found. My attempts at indoor rearing, pursued during two years with glass tubes or reeds, taught me that the Three-horned Osmia is not much addicted to long series. As though to decrease the difficulties of the coming deliverance, she prefers short galleries, in which only a part of the laying is stacked.
With both these Osmiae, the division of the gallery is the same as with the Three-horned Osmia. At the back are large cells with plentiful provisions and widely-spaced partitions; in front, small cells, with scanty provisions and partitions close together. Also, the larger cells supplied me with big cocoons and females; the smaller cells gave me little cocoons and males.
This is more particularly the case with the Three-horned Osmia, who, as she uses clayey materials very easily affected by the rain, requires, like the Pelopaeus, a dry shelter for her cells, a shelter which she finds ready-made and uses just as it is, after a few touches by way of sweeping and cleansing.
I should not, for example, count on being successful with the cells of the three-horned Osmia, who shares the Anthophora's quarters: her egg is short and thick; and her honey is yellow, odourless, solid, almost a powder and very faintly flavoured.
Fed upon the larva of the Three-horned Osmia or of the Blue Osmia, Anthrax sinuata, whether of handsome proportions or a dwarf, is still Anthrax sinuata; fed upon the allowance of the Anthidium of the empty Snail-shells, the Anthidium of the brambles, the Megachile or doubtless many others, the Burnt Zonitis is still the Burnt Zonitis.
A few words, before I begin, about the works. The Mason-bee of the Sheds utilizes, first of all, the old galleries of the clay nest, a part of which she good-naturedly abandons to two Osmiae, her free tenants: the Three-horned Osmia and Latreille's Osmia.
There are other quarters that suit the Three-horned Osmia, who is not particular, it seems to me, and will make shift with any hiding-place, so long as it has the requisite conditions of diameter, solidity, sanitation and kindly darkness. Let us go to the slope of the hills thick with olive-trees and inspect the little supporting-walls which are built of dry stones and face the south.
Guided by these considerations, I embarked on the experiments which I will now describe. I have said how my study became a populous hive, in which the Three-horned Osmia built her nests in the various appliances which I had prepared for her. Among these appliances, tubes, either of glass or reed, predominated. There were tubes of all lengths and widths.
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