MASON, Mich., city, county-seat of Ing ham County, on the Michigan Central (Sagi naw Branch) Railroad and the Michigan United Interurban, 12 miles south by east of Lansing. It was settled in 1839, in 1865 incorporated as a. village and in 1875 chartered as a city. It is a residence city with good streets and pavements, cement walks and curbing, situated in a rich farming region. The grain elevators, cold stor age, beanery, hay barns, cream and poultry stations, stockyards, lumber-yard and gravel pits are important resources. It is the home of several prize winners in Holstein exhib its and excels in fine horses. The principal buildings are the courthouse, schools with an annex, churches and fine homes. The city owns and operates the electric light and waterworks. Pop. 1,742.
a name given to the small wild bees of the genera Osmia, Ceratosmia and Chalcidoma, which construct their nests with sand or gravel, agglutinated together by means of a viscid saliva, and fix them on the side of walls, under stones, within the hollows of plant stems whence the pith has been removed, or avail themselves of some other cavity for that purpose. The mason-bees, like the
bees, leaf-cutters and other allied forms of the famibr Megachilida., are solitary in habits, not Erring in communities, although groups of cells are usually found near together, made by the same mother-bee, and each containing a single egg and food— a mixture of honey and pollen. Consult Howard, L. O., 'The Insect Book' (latest ed., New York 1914), which contains an extensive bibliography of the subject; id., 'Standard Natural History) (Vol. II, Boston 1884); Fabre, Henri, 'Insect Life' (English trans., London 1901); id., 'Mason Bees' (New York 1914).