104 THE HUMBLE-BEE vil 
eventually wax-moth caterpillars devoured the 
brood. 
ATTRACTING QUEENS TO OCCUPY ARTIFICIAL 
DOMICILES 
Towards the end of April 1894 I made a ball 
of soft dead fibre from a tuft of pampas grass and 
placed it in some long grass. I left this ball un- 
disturbed until June 4, when, on examining it, great 
was my pleasure to find it occupied by an agrorum 
queen. The material had been worked into a snug 
nest, inside which were five cocoons containing 
pupee, one batch of very young larve and a honey- 
pot full of honey. 
The next spring I made about twenty nests 
from the soft dead blades of grass that are in some 
situations to be found in tufts under the new growth, 
this being the material of which the mice in the 
neighbourhood generally make their nests. In 
some cases I lined the nest with still softer material 
obtained by unravelling old rope and cutting it up 
into lengths of about half-an-inch. Although | 
placed these nests in the most likely places I could 
think of, such as on grassy banks and under ivy at 
the edge of a wood, not one of them was occupied 
by humble-bees. 
No further attempts were made to lure queens 
with artificial nests until the year 1905, when it 
occurred to me to try to attract the underground- 
dwelling species by placing my nests under the 
ground. 
