NEW TYPE OF BEE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4362, 6 January 1922, Page 3

NEW TYPE OF BEE.

»ISC®VEBI ■IN ENGLAND.

From Englapd it is reported that a new type of bee, black, and of large proportions, had been found in Hertfordshire, by Mr Harold A Geld.ard, ’ on a farm at Hunton Bridge. ‘Both the insect and the nest are curious, and-have never been fdund in England before. The bee is common all round the Mediterranean, but its previous most northerly range was Bonn, Germany. It is also known in Central Asia and Africa. Last July a trickling of fine sawdust was noticed coming from a hole in ? an old fence post, and on the insertion of a blade of grass out tumbled what looked like a huge black beetle. It was afterwards identified as a' new specimen at South Kensington Museum , to which the nest and the bee have just been presented. It is named Xylocopa viblaca L, or violet Carpenter Bee. It is more than l%in across the wings when they ar© outstretched, and from ,head to tail a little less than an inch long. The cplour otf the bee is its most remarkable feature. Its legs and its body are jet black. The membranous .wings have a spleiii did violet Iridescence, and glisten when turned to the light reflectings in their brightness glittering hues of copper on a rich violet. It leads a solitary existence. The queen bee alone bores into softened wood for nesting purposes, and, will cut several passages more than a foot long. The ' passages are divided into cells by means pf particles off sawdust cemented together with saliva of the bee, and ‘ placed to form a partition across the pai mge. Each cell is stored with a itlty of food, consisting of pollen grains made into paste with honey. An egg is laid near the food before the cell is finally sealed up. Eventually the eggs hatch into grubs, which * remain within the cells feeding upon the pollen paste until they become full grpwn. They then turn into chrysalides; and remain thus until the following spring, when they emerge as full-grown adult bees. Bees are not long-distance fliers, and rarc- ■ ly travel more than a few miles from the locality where they first see light. .How, then, did this carpenter bee 0 travel from its native place, which may be fi ; om 300 to 1000 miles away, to the locality where it was discovered?