6 THE HUMBLE-BEE I 
thus been laid bare, and their requirements, which 
are quite different from those of the honey-bee, 
have been studied and supplied. In addition, 
various attempts have been made with queens to 
establish the colonies artificially ; these have been 
partially successful, and have revealed several 
interesting facts about humble-bees, especially re- 
specting their adaptability to treatment and their 
intelligence. 
Only a very few of the numerous queens that set 
out in the spring with so much promise succeed in 
establishing colonies. Their failure is due not so 
much to unfavourable weather as to the attacks of 
enemies. In its early stages the brood is very 
liable to be eaten by ants or mice: when this danger 
is past a humble-bee of the idle genus Pszthyrus 
may enter the nest, kill the queen, and make slaves 
of her children; at astill later period the brood may 
be consumed by the caterpillars of a wax-moth. 
As soon as any of these foes have found and entered 
the nest there is no escape for the inhabitants from 
destruction, and it has given me a good deal of 
pleasure to try and protect the bees that have been 
under my care from them. 
It may be asked: Can humble-bees be made to 
produce honey for human consumption? Under 
favourable conditions humble-bees store honey, the 
flavour of which, as most schoolboys know, is 
excellent ; but, unfortunately, the amount in each 
nest never exceeds a few ounces, so that to obtain 
a quantity many colonies would have to be kept, 
