THE EVOLUTION OF THE BEE AND THE BEEHIVE
filled with pollen, on which an egg is laid. Other species of this group enter houses in India, and both sexes there take part in making cells of clay, which may be set in any hollow tube, such as the barrel of a gun or the hollow in the back of a book which is lying open, or in the interior of a piece of bamboo.
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Then we have the mason bees, which construct nests of sand or soil or clay moulded together with some sticky substance. Externally each cell is rough and untidy, but inside it is smooth and polished. Generally ten to twenty cells form a nest, and each cell is stored with a mixture of honey and pollen. Some of these mason bees are very hairy, and the two sexes differ from each other in colour. In its general appearance this bee is something between a humble-bee and a honey-bee, but it is solitary in its habits. Each cell may be an inch deep, and here we see pollen being carried on
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