HYMENOPTERA. 361 
The humble bees are known by their great size, their short, 
robust body, encircled by bands of very bright colours, and by 
the noise they make in flying. Their hind | 
legs arearmed with two spurs. The females 
and the workers have the same organization 
for plundering flowers as the bees have: 
they have their trunks and their legs fitted 
with brushes and baskets for gathering 
pollen. The males, like the males of hive 
bees, have no sting. The ereater number 
have their dwelling-places under ground; others make their nests 
on the surface of the soil, in the cracks of walls, in heaps of 
stones, &c. The former establish themselves in cavities situated 
as far as half a yard under ground, and approached by a long 
narrow gallery. It is almost always a solitary female who has 
been the architect of the nest. She cleans out the cavity she 
has chosen, makes i‘ 5s smooth as possible, and lines it with 
leaves and moss, to embellish the subterranean house in which 
she is to pass nearly all her existence. 
The Moss humble bee (Boméus muscorum), called also the Carding 
bce, chooses an excavation of very little depth in which to make its 
nest, or else itself undertakes the hollowing out of a hole in the 
eround. It covers this with a dome of moss or dry herbs. But 
it does not fly when transporting the moss, it drags it along the 
ground, with its back turned towards the south. Having seized a 
packet of the moss, it sets to work to draw out the bits with its man- 
dibles, and then pushing them under its body, throws them in the 
direction of the nest by.a sort of kick from its hind legs. Sometimes, 
towards the end of the season, many humble bees are to be seen 
working inline. The first seizes the moss, and after having carded 
it, passes it under its body, and throws it to the second, which 
throws it on to the third, and so on, up to the nest. When the 
materials are ready, the insect makes use of them to manufac- 
ture a sort of hemispherical lid or covering resembling felt, which 
shuts the nest in, and is lined with wax. If you lift up this cover- 
ing or small dome, which it 1s not dangerous to do, for umble 
gressive, you find beneath it a nest, composed 

bees are not very ¢ 
etn ee ‘ : 
of a coarse comb, which is surmounted by a vault of wax. 

