ENEMIES OF HUMBLE-BEES IN NEW ZEALAND. 211 



ago, the sum of about ^200,000 has been realized on red clover 

 {Trifolium ijratense) seed alone. Then- rapid establishment and 

 phenomenal dispersion over the South Island are, I believe, well 

 known to entomologists. In New Zealand, as in Europe, they 

 are subject to fluctuations in the seasons, and to several enemies. 

 Last winter (May to August) was perhaps the severest on record 

 in the South Island. Snow two inches deep lay on the Canter- 

 bury plains for several days, while sharp frosts were experienced 

 every night for a fortnight. Deeper snow and harder frosts were 

 also experienced in nearly all the upland and alpine country. As 

 a result the humble-bees were not so numerous during the pre- 

 sent as in the two previous summers ; nor have their labours been 

 quite so beneficial in fertilizing the red clover. Good results may, 

 possibly, follow an occasional severe winter in preserving and 

 perpetuating hardier forms of the race. 



Favourite and comfortable places for the humble-bees to 

 hybernate in are the raised banks beneath gorse hedges, and 

 the cavities about the roots of Pinus insignis growing on the 

 plains. It is, however, more their enemies in New Zealand I now 

 desire to refer to than to their general history. For two seasons 

 we have found numbers of dead humble-bees with a small punc- 

 ture either in their thorax or abdomen. On the 9th January of 

 the present year I was fortunate in ascertaining the cause of 

 these punctures, and in witnessing the death of a humble-bee. 

 I was admiring a fine group of antirrhinums in bloom, on which 

 several queens and neuters of Bomhus liortorum var. suhterraneus 

 were working. Instantly a queen was seized by a large Dipteron 

 (Asilas variiis), both falling together to the ground. The Asilus, 

 although inferior in size to the humble-bee, was able to hold it 

 on the ground, to pierce the fore part of the thorax, and kill the 

 bee in a few seconds by sucking out the viscera. In both America 

 and Europe the carnivorous habits of the Asilidse are well known, 

 especially their destruction of hive-bees. They have likewise 

 become troublesome about hives in this district every summer. 

 Although my small entomological library contains no records of 

 Asilus destroying humble-bees in Europe, I may suppose they 

 do exist. 



Another enemy of humble-bees here is the introduced English 

 starling. Last nesting season we noticed them several times 

 capturing and carrying the bees to their nests to feed their 

 young. Excepting fragments of the bees' wings, we were un- 

 successful in finding other portions of their bodies in the exuviae 

 around the nests. In many of the agricultural and pastoral dis- 

 tricts of New Zealand, the starling's services are invaluable as 

 destroyers of injurious insects. It is, therefore, regrettable that 

 these birds now attack the humble-bees. Up to the present I 

 have not observed any of the native birds attacking them in this 

 district. 



AshburtoD, N.Z., April, 1896. 



