Lawrence Harder did some work on nest clumping, published in
Holarctic Ecology.  I can't remember whether he addressed habitat
preferences.   Nest site preferences are addressed in papers/theses
of KW Richards.  Biome preferences of the (imported) New Zealand
species were of long-standing interest to Lou Gurr of Massey
University.  While he could assign some (specifically, B.
subterraneus) to particular geographic areas, their demarcations were
always something of a mystery.  The distribution maps among
the monographs of HE Milliron indicate a decided dislike on the part
of bumble bees (or their collectors) for the Amazon basin.
 
Rick Fisher
[log in to unmask]