114 THE HUMBLE-BEE Vil 
a thunderstorm, because the mouths of the holes 
were in a concavity ; but of the two remaining, one 
was occupied by a datrezllellus queen. 
Of these ten queens, all except one succeeded in 
rearing her brood as far as the cocoon stage. But 
from this stage onwards the colonies did not thrive 
nearly so well in the tin domiciles as in the shallow, 
earth-walled domiciles under the wooden covers. 
The tin domiciles were not so sanitary, and another 
drawback was that they were so deep in the ground 
that observations could not be comfortably made. 
The greater success of the tin domiciles than the 
wooden-covered domiciles in attracting queens was 
probably due to their being put down at a more 
favourable time and in a more favourable place, for 
in the following year (vzde zxfra) they did not prove 
so attractive to queens as the latter kind, which 
would have been more successful in 1910 if the 
season had not been abnormally damp. 
Unfortunately many of my small tenants came to 
grief; but, thanks to my being able frequently to 
examine the nests, the cause of failure was ascer- 
tained in almost every case, and light was shed on 
how humble-bees fall a prey to enemies and adverse 
conditions. Moreover, my experience in attending 
to the nests enabled me to watch in detail, step by 
step, exactly how the queens proceed in nature to 
establish their homes, and thus most of the infor- 
mation about this given in the Life-History was 
obtained. I paid as much attention to my protégées 
as time permitted, and many of them would have 
