i4 THE HUMBLE-BEE 



ii 



was most pleasantly perfumed day after day by the 

 males in a nest of B. lapidarius that was standing 

 on a table there. 



The males of B. derhamellus often disport them- 

 selves around the nest, waiting for the queens to 

 come out ; those of B. latreillellus will also do 

 this ; and I have seen a male of B. ruderatus 

 ride away upon a queen as she was flying from the 

 nest. 1 



Immediately after fertilisation the queen seeks 

 a bed in which to take her long winter sleep. The 

 queens of some of the species hibernate under the 

 ground, others creep into moss, thatch, or heaps 

 of rubbish. I have found B. lapidarius and B. 

 terrestris and occasionally B. ruderatus and B. 

 latreillellus in the ground, B. lucorum and B. hor- 

 torum in moss, and B. pratorum sometimes in the 

 ground, sometimes in moss. 



My observations have been made chiefly on 

 the underground-hibernating species, lapidarius and 

 terrestris. Both species pass the winter in much 

 the same situations, but terrestris likes best to 

 burrow in ground under trees, while lapidarius 

 prefers a more open position, almost invariably 



1 The Rev. A. E. Eaton observed the males of B. mendax in the Berner 

 Oberland, at an altitude of over 6000 feet, "resorting to favourite spots to 

 bask (a stone or a spot of bare ground), hovering with a gradual fall like a 

 feather, that ends almost imperceptibly in a dead stop, and standing with 

 wings half spread, ready to dart off in an instant at the least alarm, or the 

 sight of any insect flying past." E. Saunders, in quoting this in the Ento- 

 mologist's Monthly Magazine (April 1909, p. S4), called attention to the 

 enormous eyes of the male of B. mendax, and to the fact that the males of the 

 sand-wasp As/a/us, whose eyes are so large that they unite, have exactly the 

 same habit. 





