IV EakaolTES AND’ ENEMIES 79 
red, and with three bands of golden hairs across 
the abdomen. The male is winged and has the 
abdominal bands silvery. 
Almost every humble-bee’s nest is more or less 
infested with mites, minute eight-legged animals 
related to the spidersand ticks. They are harmless 
to the humble-bees and feed on wax or on the food 
supplied to the humble-bee larve, for the young 
mites may sometimes be found swarming under their 
waxen coverings. When the young queens are 
developed these mites leave the comb and crawl on 
to their bodies, obtaining a lodgment among the 
hairs, and in this way they are carried into the new 
nests the following spring. Overa hundred of these 
mites may sometimes be found on a single queen ; 
they chiefly congregate on the back of the thorax 
and base of the abdomen. 
Among the harmless denizens of the nest must 
be included a small lepidopterous caterpillar that 
much resembles the young larva of the wax-moth, 
but it is less active, spins no web, and does not 
attain a greater length than about a quarter-of-an 
inch. 
A not uncommon parasite of the humble-bee is 
the thread-worm Spherularia bombz. This worm 
has a remarkable life-history which is described as 
follows by Professor Sedgwick :—‘ There are small 
nematodes, the females of which alone are parasitic. 
These, after copulation in the free state with the 
small males, migrate into insects, and, under the 
favourable conditions of parasitism, not only increase 
