The Wasps and Bees collected by the Canadian Arctic 
Expedition, 1913-18. 
By F. W. L. Sladen. 
The wasps and bees brought back by the Canadian Arctic Expedition 
consist of one species of Vespa, of which twenty-eight specimens were taken in 
Alaska, and eight species of bumble-bees (Bomhus), of which one hundred and 
fifty specimens have been taken in Canada and Alaska. The purely Canadian 
material consists of one hundred and eleven specimens of five species of bumble- 
bees.^ 
It is worthy of note that Vespa is the only genus of wasps distributed 
through the temperate region that lives in colonies containing a number of 
small virgin females or workers which raise the males and the perfect females 
or queens; and likewise, among the bees, Bombus is the only genus enjoying the 
same manner of life, if we except Apis, in which the colony survives the winter. 
In both Vespa and Bombus the colony breaks up at the end of the summer, 
and the sole survivors, the young queens, after impregnation, pass the winter 
solitarily in a state of complete torpidity, and establish new colonies in the 
spring. 
VESPOIDEA. 
Represented by twenty-eight specimens from Alaska of one species of 
Vespa. 
Vespa marginata Kirby. 
Vespa marginata Kirby, Fauna Boreali Americana, Insecta. 1837. 
Vespa albida Sladen, Ottawa Naturalist, xxxii, p. 71. 
This species belongs to the Norvegica group which is distinguished from 
the other groups of the genus Vespa by the fact that the eyes do not nearly 
reach to the mandibles, and the sagitse in the male genitalia are not fused 
together at the tip. This species may be distinguished in the male and worker 
by the pale yellow, almost white, markings, combined with two red spots on 
the second dorsal segment of the abdomen. The red spots are absent in the 
queen. 
Male. — Black: mandibles; clypeus, except a median longitudinal line, 
broad in the middle; bilobate spot between antennae; scape in front; a narrow 
line on cheek above, behind eyes, another on inner margin of eye; a line on 
pronotum bordering mesonotum; a small lateral spot on the scutellum, a 
narrow uninterrupted slightly wavy line on apical margins of dorsal abdominal 
segments 1 to 5; a narrow line interrupted in the middle on segment 6; two 
large comma-shaped spots on segment 7 and the margins of ventral segments 
2 to 4, pale yellow, almost white. A large red spot on each side of segment 2. 
Second and base of third antennal joint testaceous beneath. Inner margin of 
stipes not sharply angled, clothed with dense short red hairs; legs testaceous; 
coxse, trochanters and bases of femora black; a black spot on fore tibiae, apex of 
femora and of tibiae, and basal tarsi flavous. Body hairs long, pale, mixed with 
black, including those on the first segment of abdomen. Length, 13 mm. 
'The types of all new species described in this Report are deposited in the Canadian National 
Collection, Ottawa. 
