ON MAKING A COLLECTION 22 



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It requires much time and patience to obtain a 

 series of perfect, unfaded specimens of some of the 

 less common species, especially of the queens, by 

 catching them in the fields, but if a nest can be 

 found they can easily be bred. The bees must be 

 allowed to remain in the nest for three or four days 

 after they have acquired their full colour or the 

 colour will fade when they are drying. The queens 

 of some species, such as B. heifer aims and B. 

 muscorum, fly from the nest before their full bright- 

 ness has been acquired, and in order to breed satis- 

 factory specimens of them it is necessary to keep them 

 confined to the nest by means of a queen interceptor, 

 or to bring the nest indoors shortly before it breaks 

 up, and keep it in a box covered with wire-cloth. 

 The colours of perfectly mature specimens are 

 permanent, provided they are not exposed for long 

 to strong light, the only possible exceptions that I 

 know of being the delicate shades of lemon and 

 greenish-yellow in B. muscorum and distinguendus, 

 which I have not yet succeeded in preserving in 

 their full freshness for more than a few months. 



There is no better place for collecting humble- 

 bees than a large old-fashioned garden. Of the 

 scores of cultivated flowers that they delight in, 

 one cannot do more than mention a few : in the 

 flower garden, nasturtium, sweet-pea, snapdragon, 

 lavender, bergamot, Clarkia and Fraxinella ; in the 

 kitchen garden, sage, broad-beans, scarlet-runners, 

 globe artichoke (I have seen as many as fourteen 

 humble-bees on one flower-head of this plant), also 



