Wild Bees, Wasps and Ants and Other Stinging Insects — A Colony of Anthophora 

A COLONY OF ANTHOPHORA

_Anthophora pilipes_ (pl.

D, 24, 25), one of our early spring bees, often forms enormous colonies.

I have sometimes seen sandpits in which the sides were riddled all over with holes of this species, and where the insects were in such numbers that a distinct hum was audible from the vibration of their wings.

In such colonies one is sure to detect some of their cuckoo associates, _Melecta armata_ (pl.

D, 26).

They are deep black bees, much of the same size as their hosts but with more pointed tails and with a small spot of snow-white hairs on the side of each segment of the body; like other cuckoos they sail about in a more demure way than their hosts, but a more lively scene than a large colony of _Anthophora_ can hardly be found.

The _Anthophora_ provisions its cells with honey and pollen, and its egg in consequence floats on the top--the {62} number of cells varies from five or six up to ten or eleven.

_Anthophora pilipes_ has a very close relative in _Anthophora retusa_, which also forms large colonies, but it is as a rule less common.

These two species are exceedingly alike, in fact it requires some skill on the part of the observer to differentiate their females.

They are both black and clothed with black hairs, and both have yellow pollen-brushes, but in _retusa_ the hairs are shorter and not quite of such a deep black as those of _pilipes_, and the spurs of the tibiae are pale, whereas in _pilipes_ they are black.

The males, however, differ widely, although much alike in colour; in _pilipes_ the feet of the middle pair of legs are clothed with enormously long hairs, the basal joint has a dense fringe of black hairs in front and some long black hairs behind (see pl.

D, fig. 24); in _retusa_ the basal joint of the middle pair of feet have a fan-shaped fringe of black hairs, and the rest of the joints are clothed with longer hairs, but not long enough to be specially noticeable.

_A.

retusa_ is visited by the same cuckoo as _A.

pilipes_ and also by its rare ally _Melecta luctuosa_, which only differs from _armata_ {63} (pl.

D, 26) in the larger and squarer spots of the body and various small structural characters hardly appreciable except by specialists.

The Anthophoras have other parasites besides their cuckoos; one is a beetle, which, however, is rare, and which lays its egg in the _Anthophora_ cells; the other is a very minute member of the Hymenopterous family, whose larva when hatched feeds upon the larva of the bee.

Notwithstanding these disadvantages both species are abundant, although _retusa_ is more local than _pilipes_.

A very interesting fact connected with this genus has just been communicated to me by the Rev. F.

D.

Morice.

John Ray, who lived in the seventeenth century, mentions in his book _Historia Insectorum_ (published posthumously in 1710), p. 243, that a large colony of a bee, which from his description was clearly an _Anthophora_, as he specially calls attention to the great difference between the males and females, inhabited a certain locality at Kilby near "Hill Morton" in Northamptonshire.

Mr. Morice, who for many years resided at Rugby, knew Hillmorton, as it is now spelled, well, and tells me that a large colony of _Anthophora_ was in that same locality when he knew it only {64} a few years ago.

Of course there is no proof that it has been there throughout the intervening period, but there seems to be no reason to doubt it, and if so it is a most interesting case of a persistent colony.

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