PARASITES 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 spiders and ticks. They are harmless 

 to the humble-bees and feed on wax or on the food 

 supplied to the humble-bee larvse, 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. Over a 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 Sphcerularia bombi. 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 



