Several times I saw a yellow bee leave its own nest and
hover round or settle on the neighbouring one, upon which the sentinel
black bee would attack and drive it off. One day, while watching, I was
delighted to see a yellow bee actually enter its neighbour's nest, the
sentinel being off duty. In about five minutes' time it came out again
and flew away unmolested. I concluded from this that humble-bees, like
their relations of the hive, occasionally plunder each other's sweets.
On another occasion I found a black bee dead at the entrance of the
yellow bees' nest; doubtless this individual had been caught in the act
of stealing honey, and, after it had been stung to death, it had been
dragged out and left there as a warning to others with like felonious
intentions.
There is one striking difference between the two species. The yellow bee
is inodorous; the black bee, when angry and attacking, emits an
exceedingly powerful odour: curiously enough, this smell is identical in
character with that made when angry by all the wasps of the South
American genus Pepris--dark blue wasps with red wings. This odour at
first produces a stinging sensation on the nerve of smell, but when
inhaled in large measure becomes very nauseating. On one occasion, while
I was opening a nest, several of the bees buzzing round my head and
thrusting their stings through the veil I wore for protection, gave out
so pungent a smell that I found it unendurable, and was compelled to
retreat.
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