Originally published in the Manchester Guardian on 15 August 1916 A dragon-fly of our largest species visited the “Manchester Guardian” office approximately a week ago,entering through an open window. I have seen a Manchester-captured dragon-fly before, but the occurrence of the insect is worth recording; it is a powerful aeronaut and carnivorous, and but why it should attempt to hunt flies in the city when the supply is so much greater external is tough to understand. A Wilmslow correspondent has sent me the remains of a crimson geranium,for from each petal a well-kept semicircular portion has been removed. He watched a bee snipping the petals and bearing them away to a hole in the mortar on his house wall; he asks what the bee is and why it wanted the bits of flower. It is one of the leaf-cutter bees, a pollen-lover like our hive bee, or the cut bits were to build the cells in which its young would spend their early stages,as egg, grub, or nymph or pupa; they catch the space of the wax cells in the hive bee’s comb. In the selected crack or tunnel the cells are placed in a long row,fitting neatly into one another; each oblong cell is formed of folds of cut leaves or petals, the insect cutely taking advantage of the inward curl of the drying vegetable tissues in the construction. The base of each cell is convex; in it an egg is placed and a supply of food, and then a concave door,generally formed of several layers of leaf, wonderfully rounded and out to size, or closes the cell until the perfect bee is alert to push its way out. The convex base of the next cell fits into the concave door. The grub,when it leaves the egg, converts its well-filled storeroom into living-room to suit its growth, or eating room for its enlarging body. Some leaf-cutters show aesthetic taste,selecting red or yellow petals, but the majority cut their cell fabric from the leaves of our garden roses. If my correspondent will excavate one or two of the cells I am sure he will be amazed at their beauty.
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Source: theguardian.com