Arctic and Sub-Arctic Bees

Abstract

OF the wild bees of Alaska nothing is known, except that several species of humble-bees (Bombus) are common. Consequently, when Mr. Trevor Kincaid wrote me last year that he was going to Alaska, and would collect bees, I was expecting to see, on his return, quite a new bee-fauna. He collected carefully, and brought back a nice series, but all Bombus! No other genus was seen, although brightly-coloured flowers are quite numerous in Alaska. On the Pribilof Islands he found a fine new species of Bombus, which I named B. Kincaidii, but there was no other bee. I have written to Dr. W. H. Dall, to ask whether he ever saw any bees other than Bombus in Alaska. He replies that he collected there in 1868 four or five Bombus, and some wasps of the genera Vespa and Pompilus, but he has no record of other bees.