BREEDING EXPERIMENTS WITH BREMUS QUEENS. 329 



of doors, whenever the weather was pleasant, provided eggs or 

 larvae were present in the nest. Shortly after the first worker 

 emerged, the tin can was removed, and the young colony, after 

 being provided with additional nesting material, was given com- 

 plete liberty. 



Several nuclei, instead of building the first cells on the honeybee 

 foundation, started their nests on the floor of the box, outside of 

 the tin can. The behavior of such nuclei was as follows: The 

 queen and workers, with outstretched abdomens, nestled closely 

 to the floor of the nest-box about a certain spot which they had 

 cleared of all foreign matter. As a result of this behavior, the 

 chosen spot was gradually (sometimes within a day or two) 

 coated with a layer of wax, and at this place the first cell was 

 built. On several occasions, I tried to discourage the bees from 

 starting their nest outside the tin can, by placing sand on the 

 spot which they had selected. However, this did not disconcert 

 them, for they immediately began to push the sand aside, picking 

 up the larger grains with their mandibles and carrying them to the 

 periphery of the wax-covered area. This experiment was repeated 

 several times with a nucleus of Bremus bimaculatus , but the bees 

 could not be persuaded to start their nest under the tin can until 

 a layer of soap was substituted for the wax which they had de- 

 posited. 



Having given a general account of the methods used in rearing 

 bumblebee colonies from confined queens, I shall now proceed 

 to discuss my own experiments somewhat more in detail. In 

 order to make these data as complete as possible, a brief account 

 of what is known concerning the nesting habits of our New 

 England species has been added, with the exception of those 

 cases where this has already been done in a previous paper ('226). 

 Since all of these breeding experiments were carried out during 

 the spring and summer of 1922, the year has been omitted from 

 most dates, 1922 being understood, unless otherwise indicated. 



Terrestris GROUP. 

 i. Bremus affinis Cresson. 



From the latter part of May until the end of June, several 

 queens of this species were confined in separate nest-boxes with 



