Reprinted with permission from: Mitchell, T.B. 1962 Bees of the Eastern United States. North Carolina Agricultural Experiment Station Technical Bulletin No. 152.
QUEEN—Length 19-21 mm., breadth of abdomen 9.5 mm.; black, including legs, spurs and tegulae; wings deeply infuscated, veins brownish to piceous; apical margins of abdominal terga narrowly yellowish-hyaline, pubescence copious, rather elongate in general, largely black on head but with a small amount of greyish pubescence intermixed in the black just above antennae; pubescence yellow, long and dense on pronotum,
tubercles, pleura above, anterior half of scutum and entire scutellum, black on posterior half of scutum, pleura below and posteriorly, propodeum, and legs in large part; corbicular fringe of elongate black hairs; basitarsus covered with extremely fine pale tomentum which does not quite hide the surface, fringed posteriorly with black hairs, those toward the base more elongate; pubescence yellow on abdominal terga 1-4, black on 5 and 6; clypeus closely and deeply punctate laterally and above, the interspaces in part very minutely punctate, being thus doubly punctate, the median apical area shining and largely impunctate; labrum rather broadly rounded or sub- truncate, elevated basally on each side of midline where t is somewhat excavated, with a median, transverse row of short, fuscous hairs; apex of mandible with a deep notch at upper angle, and a finer notch just below, otherwise broadly rounded, outer face smooth, somewhat shining but minutely roughened; malar space smooth and shining, with scattered, very minute punctures, considerably longer than basal width of mandible, the eye about three and one-half times longer; lateral ocelli very slightly nearer eyes than to each other, and slightly nearer each other than to margin of vertex; median area of face very closely and finely punctate, punctures becoming more deep, distinct and coarse above, surface around ocelli more or less shining and impunctate, vertex finely and densely punctate medially, becoming somewhat more distinctly and finely punctate laterally; antennal scape somewhat more than half length of flagellum, basal segment of flagellum slightly shorter than segments 2 and 3 combined, slightly shorter than 3; posterior margin of hind basitarsus very slightly curved; tergum 6 narrowly rounded apically, rather flat, somewhat shining, minutely punctate.
WORKER—Length 10.5-ill mm., width of abdomen 4-6.5 mm.; similar to queen except for size, but clypeus not so definitely doubly punctate, with a much broader median area that is shining and largely impunctate.
MALE—Length 11-20 mm., breadth of abdomen 5-7 mm.; black, including legs, spurs and tegulae piceous; wings lightly infuscated, veins testaceous to piceous; apical margins of abdominal terga 1-5 narrowly yellowish-hyaline; pubescence copious and elongate, largely black on head, but face and cheeks with some obscure, short, greyish pubescence intermixed at base of the elongate black hairs, and a few yellowish hairs intermixed among the black on vertex; pubescence yellow on pronotum, anterior half of scutum, scutellum, pleura in large part, and propodeum, black on posterior half of scutum, resulting in a conspicuous black interalar band; basal segments of legs with more or less intermixed dark and light pubescence, but largely black on tibiae and tarsi, hind tibiae somewhat dilated apically, with very short, black hairs fringing both anterior and posterior margins; pubescence bright yellow, short and dense on abdominal terga 1-5, largely black on 6 and 7; clypeus closely and rather finely punctate laterally and above, median apical area shining and largely impunctate, punctures of two distinct sizes; labrum rather broadly rounded, narrowly shining and impunctate across base, elsewhere closely and rather finely punctate; mandibles very small and slender, distinctly bidentate at apex, the dorsal tooth somewhat smaller than the other, outer face densely pale tomentose, lower margin fringed with long, curved, fuscous hairs; malar space smooth and shining, with a few scattered, minute punctures, considerably longer than basal width of mandible, eyes slightly less than four times as long; median area of face finely and closely punctate, becoming shining and sparsely punctate above, largely impunctate beneath anterior ocellus and adjacent to lateral ocelli, vertex very densely punctate medially, becoming more distinctly and rather coarsely punctate laterally; basal segment of flagellum distinctly longer than segment 2, 3 nearly twice as long as 2; hind basitarsus very slightly narrowed toward base; genital armature as shown (fig. 130).
DISTRIBUTION — Quebec and New Brunswick to Georgia, west to the Pacific Coast, May to October.
FLOWER RECORDS—Cirsium, Helianthus and Vaccinium. Brittain and Newton (1933) record fervidus on Amelanchier, Caragana, Daucus, Lonicera, Muscari, Narcissus, Phleum, Pyrus malus, Salix, Taraxacum and Tulipa.
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