Outdoor Visits  by Edith M. Patch

The Bee That Cut Leaves

Mrs. Leaf Cutter was as busy as a bumblebee or a honey bee. But she did not do the same kind of work that those other bees did. She had her own different habits.

First this little bee found a big piece of wood. It was so old that it was soft.

Next she dug a hole in the wood with her jaws.

Her jaws were like tools that she could use in many different ways. They were strong enough to dig in wood if it was soft.

When her hole was five or six inches long she flew away.

She went as far as a rose bush. Then she used her jaws again. This time she used them like little shears. They were sharp and she cut a piece out of a rose leaf. She could cut very, very quickly.

Mrs. Leaf Cutter needed many such pieces for her nests. But she could hold only one at a time. So she took each piece to her hole as soon as she cut it.

She made a nest shaped like a thimble. She had some sticky juice in her mouth. She put some on each piece of leaf to hold it in place.

When her first nest was ready she filled it with bee bread. She made this food with pollen and nectar that she got from flowers.

She drank the nectar and put the pollen on the hairs on the under part of her body. Then she took them to the nest and made bee bread.

After she filled the nest with food, she laid an egg. She put it on top of the bee bread.

Then she flew to the rose bush again. She cut a round green piece the right size to cover the nest.

Mrs. Leaf Cutter made about eight rose leaf nests. They were in the hole like a row of thimbles. One was on top of another.

Each nest had one egg in it. The baby bee that hatched was soft and white. It had no legs or wings.

It ate all the bee bread that was in its own nest. That was all the food it needed. When that was gone the baby bee was not hungry.

Each baby bee changed to a pupa. It did not need to eat while it was a pupa. It rested and its body changed again.

When it had rested long enough it was not a pupa any more. It was a grown bee and looked like Mrs. Leaf Cutter.

Don and Nan saw one of these bees fly to a rose bush. She was not so large as a honey bee. She did not have so many pretty hairs as a bumblebee.

The children watched the bee cut a piece from a leaf and fly away.

"I wonder why she cut the leaf," said Nan to her brother.