i So THE HUMBLE-BEE 



VIII 



Coat uneven and rather long. 



Head very long as in the queen, the cheeks being rather 

 more than half as long as the eyes. 



Antennae long, length of flagellum 6j> mm. 

 Armature like that of B. ruderatus. 



A male sent me from Cargill in Perthshire is entirely black, 

 with the exception of a few scattered hairs on the 5th and 6th 

 segments. 



B. hortorum is one of the commonest and most 

 widely distributed of the British species, and occurs, 

 though not very plentifully, in Orkney. The queens 

 begin to appear and to make their nests rather early 

 in the season. In the Dover district most of the 

 nests are started about the middle of May, but a few 

 queens may be seen working up to the end of June, 

 and occasionally later. On July 17, 191 1, I took a 

 nest in which the first batch of workers had not 

 emerged, but they began coming out two days 

 later. The queen was rather small but very active, 

 and showed no signs of wear or exposure, which 

 suggested that she might have been reared the 

 same season. The males are most abundant in 

 July, but continue appearing in small numbers till 

 October. 



The nests are not very populous and seldom, I 

 think, contain more than 100 workers. Thev are 

 generally under the ground, with a short tunnel. I 

 once found a queen occupying a sparrow's nest in a 

 Virginian creeper at a height of about twenty feet 

 from the ground on the wall of a house ; the nest 

 consisted of soft hay and feathers, and under the 

 comb there was an addled sparrow's Qgg. 



