106 Lae HUMBLE-BEE - Vil 
About twenty of these artificial underground 
domiciles were formed in May in and around my 
apiary, which is a favourite spot for humble-bees to 
nest in because the plot, almost an acre in size, is 
covered with grass that is never grazed, and is sur- 
rounded by young Austrian pines and other bushy 
trees, single specimens of which are scattered about. 
An examination of these nests in the middle of 
June showed that several of them had been occupied 
by queens who had started breeding in them but 
had deserted, for they contained mouldy remains of 
pollen, honey-pots, and in some cases brood. The 
nests were more or less wet, and the nest cavities 
were occupied by centipedes, millipedes, slugs, and 
beetles. Some of the nests were saturated with 
water, and contained earth-worms and their casts. 
The cause of the queens deserting was apparently 
the damp and the vermin. In one of the nests, 
however, a poor hortorum queen was found dead 
with her feet entangled in tow, which, evidently, had 
not been cut short enough. 
The following spring, in April, I put down forty 
more nests. The domiciles were made like those of 
the previous year, but I covered some of them with 
bee-hive roofs in the hope that these would keep 
them dry—an expectation that was not realised. The 
domiciles were numbered consecutively, the num- 
ber being painted in black on a white stick, which 
was afterwards stuck in the sod covering each nest. 
I found these sticks very useful to mark the spots, 
which soon became overgrown with grass. 
