Bombus eximius Smith (Hym.: Apidae, Bombinae): a queen recorded from Hong Kong
The presence of worker bees of Bombus eximius has recently been observed at various locations in the New Territories and has been reported by Corlett (1997) and Ng & Corlett (1997). These sightings were made during March, April and May of 1996, 1997 and 1998. On 20th September 1998, a field meeting held by the Hong Kong Lepidoptera Group was arranged to visit Ma On Shan for the purpose of recording hill-topping butterflies. Whilst on this trip, at some 500m altitude on the ridge leading up to the top of the Tiu Shan Ngam (UTM 50Q KK 161 812), J.J.Young, V.Yiu and R.C.Kendrick encountered a very large bee. It was brought to our attention by the very low frequency drone as it flew past. Fortunately, it settled on a nearby rock, where a closer look was taken. The bee was somewhat larger than the Xylocopa carpenter bees, at about 30-35mm in length. It was much more reminiscent of a Bombus in shape, although the size seemed excessive. Colour photographs were taken, (see Figure 1) but the specimen flew off before it could be caught and no more attention was paid during the field trip. The bright light levels encountered resulted in very dark shadows, making for poor black and white digital reproduction of the original slide.
Subsequent reference to the articles above, combined with the photographs obtained, show this specimen to match the description of Bombus eximius given in Corlett (1997), with a shiny black hairy body, bright orange-brown legs and abdomen tip (last two or three segments). The wings appeared to have a shiny orange tinge. As the size of the worker bees of this species is given as 10 to 15 mm in length, it is assumed this sighting was of a queen bee, which is more in agreement with the 30 mm quoted in Frison (1934). This remains the only sighting of a Bombus eximius queen in Hong Kong (R. Corlett, pers. comm.) and is somewhat earlier in the dry season than the January prediction by Ng & Corlett (loc. cit.). For the record, the weather was sunny, very warm (30ºC; 65% r.h.) and with just a gentle breeze. The bee was seen at about 11:30 a.m. Quite what it was doing on the rock is still a mystery.
Roger Kendrick
References
Corlett, R.T, 1997. A bumblebee for Hong Kong. Porcupine! 16: 6.
Frison, T.H., 1934. Records and descriptions of Bremus and Psithyrus from Formosa and the Asiatic Mainland. Transactions of the Natural History Society of Formosa 24: 150-185.
Ng, S.C. & Corlett, R.T., 1997. Bumblebees (Bombus eximius: Apidae, Bombinae) in Hong Kong. Memoirs of the Hong Kong Natural History Society 21: 211-212.
P.8
Back to Contents
Back to Porcupine Homepage
Go to Departmental Homepage
