384 INTRODUCTION TO ZOOLOGY chap. 



it can be readily distinguished by the bright reddish patch at 

 the end of the otherwise black body of the queen and workers ; 

 the males have a similar red tail, but also a yellow band just 

 behind the head. The specific name of this bee refers to its 

 habit of burrowing its nest under a large stone. 



The Moss-carding Bee (Bomhus agrorum) is an- 

 cardliw'Bee ^^^^^ ^^^7 common, but rather smaller species. 

 ' The thorax and tail are covered with tawny-brown 

 hairs, but the rest of the abdomen is darker in colour. These 

 bees usually make their nests in a shallow hollow in the ground 

 or on sheltered banks. The nest is hidden by a low mound 

 of finely divided moss and shreds of other plants, so that it is 

 difficult to detect. The bee drags the moss along the ground 

 until she is near her nest, moving backwards ; then she tears 

 it up with her jaws, pushing the threads under her body, and 

 kicking them over the nest with her back legs ; under the 

 moss-lid thus, made an irregular cluster of cells is constructed, 

 and a colony gradually grows. 



Amongst the small colonies of these Humble Bees are 

 found certain very unsocial instincts, which in the more 

 civilised Honey Bees have been eliminated by the " spirit of 

 the hive." The Humble Bees will occasionally seize and 

 devour the eggs in the cells — a crime never enacted in an 

 ordinary hive. This is specially so in the fairly frequent 

 case of a colony in which, as well as the queen-mother of the 

 nest, there are several workers that lay eggs. 



Short-tongued Solitary Bees. 



The The life of the Hive Bee is more complex and 



Burrowing more highly organised than that of any other bee; 



^^®- one of the simplest, on the other hand, is that of the 

 wild Burrowing or Mining Bee {Andrena fulva), often seen in 

 spring, on garden lawns or any sandy bank, busy burrowing 

 little tunnels in the earth. This bee lives a solitary life, and 

 does no more for its offspring than supply it with a cell in 

 the earth for shelter, and a little store of food on which it 

 can feed itself. There is no social life and no specialised 

 workers to care for the young. 



The mother-bees are a little smaller than a worker hive- 



