vi AEE RAC TING QUEENS 109 
fine material I had failed to supply. It was under 
a hive roof, and was found to be occupied by a 
hortorum queen on June 2. The queen was occa- 
sionally seen passing in and out up till June 9. 
The next day, the queen not having been observed, 
I lifted the roof and was sorry to find the nest 
disarranged, with no trace of comb. A weasel had 

TAX WN 
Ulf A Ge >) |) 


L111 // 
FIG. 23.—Sladen’s Domicile for Humble-bees. 
c, Sladen's wooden cover ; é, implement for making the tunnel ; 4, mason’s 
hammer for driving implement through the ground, 
been seen five yards from the spot the day before ; 
in all probability the brood had been eaten either 
by this animal or by a shrew. 
But my expectations for 1910 were centred in 
a new form of cover I had designed for under- 
ground domiciles, consisting of a thick wooden disc 
having around its edge a band of sheet metal pro- 
jecting downwards. The metal band had its upper 
edge turned inwards at a tin-plate factory, and this 
