Volume 26, Plate XVI / Entomology (Insects)

Lapidary or Red-Tailed & Moss or Carder Bees

Bombus Lapidarius & B. Muscorum

1. Lapidary or Red-Tailed Bee. The Lapidary or Red-Tailed Bee, Bombus Lapidarius, takes its name from nesting among loose heaps of stones, though it sometimes burrows in earth. The female is largely deep velvety black with the three last abdominal segments red, while the smaller male shows a lemon-yellow and black thorax; common in Britain and Europe, it frequents flowers in summer, favours hilly pastures, stores honey assiduously, and defends it with great zeal.
2. Moss or Carder Bee. The Moss or Carder Bee, Bombus Muscorum, is usually rather small, of pale yellow general colour with reddish yellow or golden thoracic hairs and a fulvous, triangular abdomen, the females sometimes reaching ten lines. Frequent throughout temperate Europe and known in Scotland as the Foggie or Moss-bee, it builds a little surface dome of moss, easily plundered, carding and combing the material with maxillae and legs and passing it back along the body to the nest.