32 g Canadian Arctic Expedition, 1913-18 



One worker, Nome, Alaska, August 24-25, 1916 (F. Johansen). Differs 

 from specimens of the queen in the Canadian National Collection from Banff, 

 Alta., in having the first segment of the abdomen not wholly black. 



Notes on the Bumble-bees. 



The specimens generally are remarkable for their long shaggy hair and their 

 large size, both well-known attributes of the arctic Bombi. Two species, 

 B. neoboreus and B. sylvicola var. johanseni from Bernard harbour, Northwest 

 Territories, show pronounced melanism. Melanism is rare in the North 

 American bumble-bee fauna and has been heretofore met with only in occasional 

 specimens, but there is a large region of pronounced melanism in Northwestern 

 Europe centred in Denmark and extending to the Alps, the British Isles and 

 Southern Scandinavia. 



Bombus is particularly well adapted to arctic conditions. These bees 

 develop considerable body heat and their warm coat enables them to keep 

 active in low temperatures. Even in the temperate region the queens of some 

 of the species may be seen collecting nectar and pollen from the willows and 

 other flowers in the sunshine of early morning while frost is still on the ground. 

 The arctic summer permits such activity at almost any hour of the day or 

 night, provided nectar can be obtained, and this probably is an easy matter on 

 account of the numerous flowers. 



The home of the bumble-bee colony is always made in a nest composed of 

 warm material, usually the deserted nest of some mammal or bird. The Arctic 

 species, so far as we know, like most of the other species, select nests under the 

 ground, a position which provides good protection from the weather. The brood 

 of Bombus needs to be incubated by heat from the body of the adult bees, but 

 can endure a longer-continued and greater degree of chill than that of Apis 

 without dying, but its development is retarded and the lustre of the coat of the 

 resulting perfect insect is reduced if the pupae are chilled. A lack of lustre is 

 characteristic of some Arctic specimens of Bombus. It is, however, probable 

 that the chilling of the brood is not frequent, because under favourable con- 

 ditions the queen will, in two or three hours, collect and store in a large waxen 

 cell she constructs in her nest, enough nectar to keep herself and her brood 

 warm for twelve to twenty hours, and, in a later stage of the colony, the workers 

 will accumulate enough honey in the vacated cocoons to last several days. 



One of the species of Bombus from the Canadian Arctic belongs to the 

 Pratorum group, several temperate zone species of which are very hardy and 

 early. B. pratorum itself is the earliest species of Bombus to start nesting in 

 England, where the young colonies occasionally have to withstand a snowstorm 

 in April. The four other species from the Canadian Arctic belong to the 

 Kirbyellus group which is confined to the Arctic and high mountain regions of 

 the northern hemisphere. The brood and adults of this group may be expected 

 to resist cold still better than those of the Pratorum group, and to be especially 

 well able to survive, in a state of semi-torpidity, a period, lasting several days, 

 when long-continued bad weather prevents the collecting of food, a character 

 already fairly well developed in Bombus pratorum. 



The taking by an Eskimo at Cape James Ross, Melville island, on June 21, 

 1916, at a latitude of almost 75°, evidently from a nest, of five nearly full-fed 

 Bombus larvse, which were brought back by Mr. Stefansson, indicates that the 

 eggs must have been laid not later than the 8th or 9th of June, and is surely a 

 remarkable record of the favourable conditions that exist for bumble-bee life 

 in the far north, at least in some seasons. Half a dozen Bombus cocoons con- 

 taining dead pupae were taken from the same locality by Mr. Storkerson in 

 April, 1916. 



An old Bombus nest containing a couple of dead pupae was brought in by 

 Dr. R. M. Anderson. on November 12, 1913, from the Sadlerochit river, Alaska; it 



