OF THE HUMBLE-BEE. 61 



and the brown; and therefore it is probably a bee. of a cold climate 

 rather than of a warm one 1 . They propagate there in the same manner 

 as they do in Britain. 



This genus* is the largest in size of the bee-tribe in this country; and 

 probably every country may have its humble-bee, and it may also be 

 the largest in that country. They are male and female. The females 

 are of two kinds : viz. queens which are annual, and labourers which 

 are semi-annual, and which breed along with the queens, which is of 

 course in the same year in which they are themselves bred ; this I 

 believe not to be the case with the queens, they being bred themselves 

 too late to breed the same year. 



They come nearer to the species of the common bee than to any of 

 the others, considering the bee as a tribe, being composed of queen, male, 

 and labourers ; but there appears to be a gradation in this tribe of 

 insects, one leading into the other. Although there are bees whose 

 size and shape entitle tbem to the term of humble-bees, yet I shall 

 consider none under this term but those which form a family, all the 

 others coming under the appellation of " solitary bees." There are 

 different species which go by the name of humble-bees. The distinc- 

 tions which would make us suppose there were different species are 

 their size and colour, with a difference in the length of tongue or pro- 

 boscis, but probably the colour is mostly to be depended upon. But 

 this question of species is to be determined with certainty, every bee 

 in a hive being of the same species, although we shall find great variety 

 in size in the same hive, but then not in colour, shape, and length of 

 proboscis. I believe the humble-bee has tbe longest proboscis of any 

 of the bee-tribe, by which it can suck the honey from flowers whose 

 cups are deep. 



In a hive consisting of 157 female humble-bees, their proboscides 

 were nearly all of a length, proportioned all to their size, but not of a 

 very long kind. Long and short proboscides are common to both female 

 and male ; but I should suppose that the female of any one species has a 

 longer proboscis than the male of the same species ; for in the above hive, 

 where there were only twenty-one males, the proboscides of these males 



* I conceive this bee forms a genus even in this country: if they are all one 

 species, then there are some varieties ; but this I doubt, for no one hive has any variety, 

 yet I could conceive that the Dun might be a variety. [Latreille has sanctioned the 

 correctness of this opinion of Hunter's by the formation of a distinct genus (Bomlms, 

 Latreille) for the reception of the different species of humble-bee.] 



1 [This conjecture has been subsequently confirmed by the capture of a species 

 of humble-bee in the most northerly latitudes yet visited by arctic voyagers. — See 

 Kirby's Description of the Insects collected in Captain Parry's Northern Expedition.] 



