Other cells contain the larva in a stage more or less advanced.

The grub is eating the last victim proffered; around it lie the remains of food already consumed.

Others, again, show me a bee, a single bee, still intact, and having an egg deposited on the under-side of the thorax.

This bee represents the first instalment of rations; others will follow as the grub matures.

My expectations are thus confirmed; as with Bembex, slayer of Diptera, so Philanthus, killer of bees, lays her egg upon the first body stored, and completes, at intervals, the provisioning of the cells.
The problem of the dead bee is elucidated; there remains the other problem, of incomparable interest--Why, before they are given over to the larvae, are the bees robbed of their honey?
I have said, and I repeat, that the killing and emptying of the bee cannot be explained solely by the gluttony of the Philanthus.