LIFE-HISTORY OF BOMBUS 



exhausted, the queen grows torpid, as she has done 

 many a time before in the early part of her career ; 

 but on this occasion, her life-work finished, there is 

 no awakening. 



Thus the life-history of the queen humble-bee is 

 completed. It only remains to describe a slight, but 

 nevertheless very interesting modification of it that 

 sometimes takes place. 



Many of the later appearing queens of B. lapida- 

 nns and terrestris, two of the most abundant species 

 in England, do not take the trouble to start nests of 

 their own, but finding a nest already occupied by a 

 queen of their own species attach themselves to it. 

 The foundress of the nest at first ignores the stranger, 

 who takes care to keep out of her way as much as 

 possible. After a short while, however, the intruder 

 grows bolder, and begins to pay close attention to 

 the brood. Jealousy then arises, and a mortal duel 

 is the result. The two queens seize and endeavour 

 to stinor one another in the most ferocious and 

 desperate manner, rolling over, locked in a deadly 

 embrace. One of them succeeds, usually within a 

 few seconds, in piercing the other, the sting in most 

 cases penetrating between two of the segments of 

 the abdomen. Instantly the sting of the wounded 

 queen becomes paralysed, and she relaxes her 

 grip of the victor. Then she grows cold and 

 lethargic, and sometimes at once, sometimes an 

 hour or two later, she dies. The foundress is gen- 

 erally the conqueror, as she deserves to be, but this 



